‘Death test’ can preDict lifespan
Do you want to know if you will be still alive in March 2019? A simple blood test can tell you. Scientists have developed a “Death Test”, which can accurately predict the chances of your dying within the next five years. Even if you are presently in robust health. Researchers have found four “biomarkers” in the body, which, when taken together, indicated a general level of “frailty”, the Daily Telegraph reports. People whose biomarkers were out of sync were five times more likely to die with five years of the blood test, the newspaper says. “What is especially interesting is that these biomarkers reflect the risk for dying from very different types of diseases such as heart disease or cancer. They seem to be signs of a general frailty in the body,” said Dr Johannes Kettunen of the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Finland. “We believe that in the future these measures can be used to identify people who appear healthy, but in fact have serious underlying illnesses and guide them to proper treatment.” A biomarker is a biological molecule found in blood, body fluids, or tissues that may signal an abnormal process, a condition, or a disease, the Daily Telegraph reports. Researchers claim that in the future a test could flag up high-risk individuals in need of medical intervention who show no symptoms of any disease. However, one doctor in the study, Prof Perola, said, “But at (the) moment there is (an) ethical question. Would someone want to know their risk of dying if there is nothing we can do about it?”