Testing for ‘mortality’: Why I measured my telomeres. Should you?

The moment will come, we know, when we’re whisked off life’s stage.

But when? It’s a mystery that has haunted humans since the dawn of civilization. If it’s soon, we can cancel that dental appointment, quit the job and take a dream vacation. If not, plan for decades of decrepitude.

For me, a clue perhaps arrived in my e-mail from a Menlo Park company, Telomere Diagnostics. Its test measures the length of a protective cap, called a telomere, at the end of each strand of DNA, the genetic blueprint of life.

Read the full article from the Chicago Tribune here.