Prevention is better than Cure

Prevention Is Better than Cure

This is an oft-repeated idiom we have been hearing ever since we were children. But have we ever given it an adequate amount of thought? What does it really mean?

It’s common sense — preventing something from happening is way better than trying to put resources into curing it. This makes even more sense when it comes to our health. Our body is made up of more than 37 trillion cells. Each of these cells harbours a long, spiral molecule called DNA — the Master Molecule of Life, controlling every aspect thereof. Apart from the way we look and all the physiologic processes that happen inside our body, DNA also determines our predisposition to many kinds of diseases, like diabetes, cancers, and mental disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Genetic Disease Risk Assessment

The most popular celebrity example of this kind of prevention is actress Angelina Jolie, who underwent a double mastectomy when she found out she had an almost 90% chance of developing breast cancer due to a mutated BRCA1 gene. Simply having a potentially harmful variant does not mean that a person will get the disease — but such a gene variant can be effectively “silenced” by making subtle changes to diet and lifestyle.

The growing fields of Nutrigenomics and Nutrigenetics have helped us understand how the food we eat interacts with our body at the cellular level. Using this information, we can find the root causes of food sensitivities as well as risks of health conditions due to our dietary habits.

Genetic screening for diseases is of utmost value for individuals who have a family history of a disease or work in a potentially hazardous environment. Investment in this kind of preventive screening makes complete sense considering the poor prognosis of the many diseases it can help find predispositions to.