The £400 test that tells you how long you'll live

The £400 test that tells you how long you'll live

www.independent.co.uk

A blood test that can show how fast someone is ageing – and offers the tantalising possibility of estimating how long they have left to live – is to go on sale to the general public in Britain later this year.

The controversial test measures vital structures on the tips of a person's chromosomes, called telomeres, which scientists believe are one of the most important and accurate indicators of the speed at which a person is ageing.

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This is very interesting to say the least. This opens up all kinds of ethical questions. Would you take this test? Here's more from the article:

Scientists behind the €500 (£435) test said it will be possible to tell whether a person's "biological age", as measured by the length of their telomeres, is older or younger than their actual chronological age.

Medical researchers believe that telomere testing will become widespread within the next five or 10 years, but there are already some scientists who question its value and whether there should be stronger ethical controls over its wider use. In addition to concerns about how people will react to a test for how "old" they really are, some scientists are worried that telomere testing may be hijacked by unscrupulous organisations trying to peddle unproven anti-ageing remedies and other fake elixirs of life.

The results of the tests might also be of interest to companies offering life-insurance policies or medical cover that

depend on a person's lifetime risk of falling seriously ill or dying prematurely. However, there is a growing body of scientific opinion that says testing the length of a person's telomeres could provide vital insights into the risk of dying prematurely from a range of age-related disorders, from cardiovascular disease to Alzheimer's and cancer. "We know that people who are born with shorter telomeres than normal also have a shorter lifespan. We know that shorter telomeres can cause a shorter lifespan," said Maria Blasco of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre in Madrid, who is the inventor of the new commercial telomere test. "But we don't know whether longer telomeres are going to give you a longer lifespan. That's not really known in humans," she added.

I wouldn't want to take this test but I can see insurance companies loving this test to determine who they will cover and what if this test is used to determine which medical treatments to give out.

Welcome to the Brave New World!

www.independent.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Matrix Rising


Already a thread...

Edit in link..www.abovetopsecret.com...

Big deal my wii has been telling me im 20+ years above my age for a while now. and it didn't cost me $650

reply to post by backinblack


I didn't see a thread in Breaking News and I was told Breaking News is different from the other forums and I just saw this Breaking News on Drudge.

Haha. For 200 Euro. I will run to steps to lower your body age. It works.

Change who you are, that's all. You like Snickers? change You like Apple, snicker bah.

You like chips? change You like brown bread, chips bah.

The above are one of the examples of my successful program.
Many went before, and never returned due to the success rate

Ever think this is a scam to test out the placebo effect on a really large number of people, while charging people a lot of money in the process?

reply to post by TKDRL


Ever think that tin hat my be a bit to tight?

Nice to know how you age, but you still can die from cars, planes, trains, etc etc.