Personalised Medicine Recognises That You Are A Unique Individual

Improving The Disease-Oriented Approach To Medicine

There is no need to tell you that you are a unique individual. You already know that nobody else has your particular combination of height, weight, skin tone, hair color, personality, sense of humor, skill at sports and games, and love of your favorite food. It isn't just the characteristics you can see about a person that vary from person to person, however. Many aspects of our biology, including processes that help maintain our health, are also highly variable between individuals.

Unfortunately, our medical system often does not treat you as a unique individual. Our medical system often takes a disease-oriented approach to your health; anyone who has a particular disease is treated the same way. If you get sick, and there are several choices of drug and dose your doctor can prescribe, he/she often has no way of knowing which drug and dose will be safest and most effective for you. Your doctor often must follow a trial-and-error strategy to determine the best drug and dose to prescribe.

One of the other important drawbacks to our disease-oriented medical system is the fact that the system places much more emphasis on treating people after they get sick than it does on helping people keep from getting sick. Many people are interested in understanding how to prevent disease, and to stay as healthy as possible as they grow older.