In this third act of life, many of us are looking to optimize: our health, our work, our time, our relationships. Too bad we couldn’t have done it sooner. I’m certainly not the only one who has come to significant insights into my health and wellness via a long and winding road of hits and misses. My kingdom for a map!

That plea to the heavens was answered, recently, when I forked over a few hundred dollars in exchange for the mapping of a few hundred of my genes, specifically the ones I can best act upon. That doesn’t mean I can change them, but I can change how they show up in my life.

I spoke with Dr. Lois Nahirney, President and CEO of dnaPower, about the technology and the doors it opens for taking charge of your own health.

If you knew early in your life that you were gluten or lactose sensitive, or that your body didn’t absorb iron, or vitamin B, you could make adjustments, right? And even when your genes tell you a story you don’t want to hear, you can choose to make the most of the cards you’ve been dealt.

The most high-profile example of this is Aussie superhero Chris Hemsworth (Thor) who discovered, through genetic testing, that he was 8 to 10 times more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s than the average human. His grandfather has Alzheimer’s and his father was recently diagnosed.

This doesn’t guarantee the train is coming down the track for him, but if it is, he can at least slow it down. He talks about this in his National Geographic series, Limitless and in a new documentary, A Road Trip to Remember.

A decade ago, only 10 genes were definitely linked with Alzheimer’s but today there are more than 70 which may be associated. The APOE gene is the strongest indicator.

“It was a good kick in the arse and a reminder to do whatever is in my power to give myself the best fighting chance,” said Hemsworth. “Whatever work I’m doing for my brain health benefits the rest of my body—we turned it into a positive.”

By that he means he can take steps now, while he’s young, to delay any onset.

If you have Alzheimer’s in your family, it doesn’t mean you will develop it although if you have a parent or sibling diagnosed your risk is higher. The APOE gene screen can tell you more but again, it’s a predisposition, not a prediction.

Full disclosure, I’m such a fan of genetic testing and now wish it was part of a broader public health initiative. That might give a firm shove to the glacial pace at which governments and health care systems move towards prevention, rather than disease treatment.

I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that I poured all the technical details of my map into AI and asked for an in-depth interpretation and it didn’t disappoint. 27 pages later I have a comprehensive document of what’s great, what to watch out for and what to avoid. This is information to share with your GP as they truly don’t have the time or background to wade through detailed genetic markers. That’s on you.

Soon you’ll be able to get a full accounting of your gut microbiome and the DNA of the entities which inhabit it, as well as a cross-reference of your genes with the medications you have, or will have, prescribed. It’s a big step towards personalized medicine.

Nahirney admits DNA can be scary, not just because of what you might find out, but also the privacy fears. The recent bankruptcy of 23andme, hot on the heels of a massive data breach, raises legitimate and pressing questions about the security of your DNA data. In that case the genetic data of nearly 7 million users was exposed, as was the admission that the aggregated data was already being sold to pharmaceutical companies. 320,000 Canadians were among those whose data was compromised.

Nahirney says her company collects only a few hundred markers intended to put information in the hands of clients, rather than hundreds of thousands of markers to sell on the open market. She uses barcode-only lab processes and destroys your sample after it’s been read.

Essentially, in Canada, you have to trust the company you’re sending your cheek swab to as there is little effective legislation to protect it once it’s in the mail.

The current regulatory environment in this country relies on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. It was passed in the early days of this millennium, well before direct-to-consumer genetic testing, social media data harvesting, and AI at scale. There was a move to modernize the legislation but it died on the order paper in January of 2025.

My enthusiastic musical offering today is an old Neil Diamond song, made most popular by the Monkees. Here they are, in 1967, with “I’m a Believer”.

Until next time, get your own roadmap.

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