Adrian Barich: When it comes to genetic testing for disease, is knowledge power or ignorance bliss?

I went out and sprinted the other day.

Yep, I took Frankie the dog down to Rosalie Park and raced him from one end of the oval to the other. I didn’t win and it was a bit painful (I have osteoarthritis in my right knee due to my long footy career) but at least I’m no longer a statistic.

You see I’ve been told that by age 40, 95 per cent of Australians will never sprint again for the rest of their life. Never.

I thought, I’m not joining that club. So now I’m in the small minority that is fighting against the dying of the light — to Barra-phrase Dylan Thomas.

Next up, I think I’ll try to join an even smaller group: those who have run a marathon, which is about three per cent of the population.

And encouraging me is not only my very good friend Gavin, but the fact that your garden variety marathon runner is getting slower.

Yes, the biggest group of finishers is in the 4-5 hour category, up from the 3-4 hour overachievers of past years.

Of course, to survive a marathon I’ll need to lose 10kg, train a lot, buy expensive shoes and maybe even have a Synvisc injection for the osteoarthritis.

A 42km run on a hard surface after six months of training could, of course, mean a premature knee replacement (which remarkably, as an ex-AFL footballer, will be covered by the league). But them’s the breaks if you want to be a “three per center”.

But all this is really leading me to discuss “losing your mind”. I’ve been shocked and saddened in recent days by news that a couple of people I know well are suffering from extensive cognitive decline.

Did you know there is even a blood test that can detect Alzheimer’s disease up to 15 years before it becomes symptomatic? And guess what, ex-footballers are being advised to make enquiries.

So would you do it? I see Thor has. Actor Chris Hemsworth, at age 40, had some genetic testing done as part of a television series and discovered he was between eight and 10 times more likely to develop the condition.

It led him to rethink his relentless work schedule . . . forget protecting Asgard and all that.

I spoke to a bloke I know who is one of Perth’s best clinicians and he says the early involvement of some experimental drugs could delay or mitigate dementia but pardon the pun, that’s a lot to think about.

If you’re anything like me, as soon as someone you know gets a serious ailment, you are immediately on high alert for similar symptoms in your own body.

Such that just the other day when I completely lost my train of thought, my first reaction was not that I was tired or overworked but that it was the early onset of you-know-what.

When I opened the fridge door and then just stood there staring at the shelves? Well, you know the story.

Have you ever gone into a room and forgot why you went there?

Whether these are early warning signs or just a normal part of ageing, who knows. But the next question is, do we really want to find out? Could it just make us unnecessarily fearful?

It’s an interesting dilemma, isn’t it? Do some testing and live with the knowledge (and the worry) or perhaps stay blissfully unaware.

It’s a bit like the old conundrum: if you could find out when you would die, would you?

In Greek culture, people asked the Oracle of Delphi that morbid question.

Would you line up for that sort of information? I’m not sure I would. I reckon I would hate having that sort of knowledge hanging over my head.