There are calculators and risk scores.

You can estimate your risk of a future heart attack or stroke. You can plug in your age and find out how much calcium there should be in your arteries. Some scores look at your ancestry. If your father smoked two packs a day and downed a six pack every evening before he beat the crap out of your mother, that can be entered. If your mother was depressed and ate all contents of the frozen food section at Shop Rite every evening on a card table, dripping Rocky Road onto the linoleum, this can be filtered in as well.

There may be a risk of–say 1 in 10,000, that you will grab a kitchen knife and slice off your own fingers and then jump in front of a moving tractor. These scores are very reproducible with a high predictive accuracy. They are now available in an app. Appropriate treatment strategies are also suggested.

Isn’t it time you found out?

© Richie Smith