Direct-to-consumer medical imaging tests are a huge and growing business worth billions of dollars. Over 100,000 Americans are already customers. But do these test results actually make us healthier?
In order to make a difference in someone’s health, the test must accurately predict or diagnose a condition, resulting in a change in mindset and behavior, and that change in mindset and behavior must produce a better outcome than not doing the test.
This seems logical. But the reason whole-body MRI of the general public isn’t recommended while other screening tests are is because in the absence of evidence, it is believed to be unlikely to produce a better outcome than doing nothing at all.
For both examples I gave—small thyroid masses, small kidney masses—it has been well documented that aggressive efforts to treat them, despite many being cancer, does not help most people. Isn’t that strange? Yet despite ourselves, we keep finding and removing them.
There are numerous non-intuitive examples like this in which only in retrospect do we realize patients have been harmed because a diagnostic test and its downstream actions were promoted to millions before confirming things worked as intended. This is why scientists and medical professionals are so obsessive about evidence and statistics. It’s really hard to know if something is hurting or helping if we rely on common sense.
Harm is often caused not by the test itself, but from actions taken to manage the information of unknown significance it produces. It is in this way that a seemingly harmless test can hurt people. We do tests to find things, and when we find things, we commonly act, even when we shouldn’t, because we aren’t rational decision-makers.
When buying one of these tests, we should pay attention to what the company is claiming. Is their test a curiosity, an entertainment product, a research tool, or clinical care? The lines are often intentionally blurry.
Many companies encourage us to assume their test improves our health. In such cases, the information we are buying may help us, hurt us, or be a placebo and do nothing at all.
Hence then, the article about why more medical testing doesn t always make us healthier was published today ( ) and is available on Time ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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