At the time, I ignored the fact that it said I was 4x more likely to develop colon cancer (I was in early 20s). My sister was diagnosed with colon cancer 3 years ago. When you are a woman diagnosed in your early 30s, apparently it is due to genetics. She discovered it by going to three different doctors after insisting she wasn’t feeling well and that it felt “deeply internal”. The doctor who suggested a colonoscopy did so because he had an internship for a year at a cancer clinic in Boston. The others thought it was in her head. Well they found a malicious tumor and the prognosis from the nations leading cancer clinic was to remove her colon, her uterus and ovaries and large intestines (in their entirety). You can imagine this is a lot to ask of anyone. We asked for data that supported the conclusion that if we don’t remove all of these parts the cancer would spread to her ovaries and kill her and there was literally none to be had. It was 100% based on the doctors personal experience (again we were at one of the top clinics in the world for this).
There is something structurally off with the modern medical system. I believe it relies too heavily on anecdotal experience and memory. I don’t know about you but I can’t remember what I ate yesterday. I think services like 23andMe are on to something, if only as a data point to empower patients to self advocate. We did nothing with the data but he moment I got the phone call I couldn’t help but wonder if we could have found this earlier.