Ignorance is bliss when I come to pop my clogs...
THE other day I received an email informing me I had 53 new relatives. 53! That’s going to put a spanner in the works come Christmas dinner. I’ve been receiving emails like this for the past couple of years, ever since I signed up for 23AndMe, a genetic testing service that tells you all sorts of weird and wonderful things about your heritage, and connects you to others you share DNA with. I have learnt, for instance, that I am 7.2 per cent French, meaning I likely had ancestors there in the past 200 years.
I’ve discovered I have more than 1,200 ‘DNA relatives’ scattered across the globe, most of whom I share less than 0.5 per cent of my DNA with.
And I am also told, gulp, that I possess 325 genetic variants which can be traced to Neanderthals, more than 98 per cent of other 23andMe customers. This – my other half devilishly remarked – ‘may explain a few things’.
Yet one thing I have never been tempted to do in this weird and wonderful new world of genetic testing is ‘upgrade’. Because nowadays, most of these companies offer an option to learn not just about your ancestry, but your health, too.
FOR a very reasonable price they will inform you what sort of diseases you might be genetically pre-disposed to, including Parkinson’s, diabetes and in some cases Alzheimer’s.
Which brings me neatly to Kirsty Gallacher, the TV presenter, who revealed this week that through a company called CircleDNA she has learnt that along with a sensitivity to caffeine, she also has a propensity to developing Alzheimer’s.
Understandably, at only 43 years old, Gallacher is somewhat terrified.
‘It’s very scary,’ she said. ‘It’s a very cruel disease’.
Of that, there is no doubt. But why, I wonder, would you want to know? Spending the next 30 years worrying the jig was up every time you forgot what you went to the supermarket for doesn’t seem particularly appealing.
‘I worry for my mum, of course,’ continued Gallacher.
‘I gave her one of these tests for Christmas because if there is a propensity for her to have it too, I want her to do as much as she can to fend it off.’ Gosh. Happy Christmas, Mum. The irony of course, is that if you do have a propensity to developing Alzheimer’s, there really isn’t an awful lot you can do about it, as Gallacher neatly demonstrates.
‘There’s not much else you can do other than keeping your brain as active as you can and as being as fit and healthy as you can,’ she said.
And well, isn’t that what we all try to do anyway?
The truth is that if there is one certainty in life, other than taxes, it’s death. Do we really need to be reminded of it? Or, even worse, find out, perhaps decades ahead of time, how we’re going to go, only to worry and stress over something we cannot change? Talk about taking the joy out of the time you have left.
There is a wonderful Muriel Spark novel entitled Memento Mori, in which the principal characters all receive anonymous telephone calls which say simply: ‘Remember you must die.’ They’re rather narked at this development, because for most of the time, most of us would rather forget.
I’m all for finding out about where I came from, and mulling over the origins of that 0.1 per cent of DNA that is apparently ‘Coptic Egyptian’.
But as for how I’m going to pop my clogs? No thanks.
Because sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.