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Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
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The Age of Diagnosis summary
Suzanne O'Sullivan
How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker
21 mins
Brief summary
The Age of Diagnosis examines the impact of medical labeling on society, questioning the balance between beneficial diagnostic advances and possible overreliance, ultimately challenging our perceptions of health, illness, and human diversity.
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The Age of Diagnosis
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Predictive results can reshape lives long before illness
Predictive genetic testing promises certainty, but with Huntington’s disease that promise carries heavy weight. Huntington’s disease, or HD, is an autosomal-dominant single-gene condition affecting one of the chromosome pairs in human DNA. It causes progressive psychiatric, cognitive, and motor decline; chorea, or involuntary jerky movement, is the hallmark movement feature. Symptoms typically appear between the ages of 30 and 50, and life is shortened by roughly 10 to 25 years after onset.
Ever since the causal variant was identified in 1993, symptom-free relatives can learn decades in advance whether disease lies ahead. That knowledge reshapes lives. Valentina learned her mother had HD while pregnant with her first child. Overnight, she and her three siblings each faced a 50 percent chance of developing an incurable disorder. She watched over her mother’s slow change – mood swings, disinhibition, and later the fidgety movements and loss of balance – until a nursing home became necessary. Anxiety took hold: panic attacks, antidepressants, and years of indecision about testing. Valentina’s own reproductive choices brought further strain. IVF with pre-implantation genetic testing, quoted at about £30,000 at the time, could avoid passing on the variant, yet she chose natural conception to prevent dividing her children into the “chosen” and the uncertain.
In this context, genetic counseling becomes the anchor. Counselors emphasize that a predictive result can’t be unlearned – and that everyday slips, like tripping on a curb or having a rough night’s sleep, may suddenly feel like early decline. This is the nocebo effect: when negative expectations and hyperfocus on risk create or intensify real symptoms. Because the brain’s predictive coding shapes what we notice and how we interpret it, being primed for HD makes even harmless sensations feel like signs of disease. Without care and support, prediction itself can distort the present.
The pattern holds across countries. Surveys often show interest in testing, but in practice most at-risk adults walk away after counseling, and actual uptake lingers in the single digits to teens. Testing can help with life planning and getting timely support once true symptoms begin, but the consequences extend far beyond medicine – into insurance, work responsibilities, and difficult family disclosures. A predictive result is a warning, not a treatment. Handled thoughtfully, though, it can leave space for hope and intentional choices.
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What is The Age of Diagnosis about?
The Age of Diagnosis (2025) argues that modern medicine and culture have become increasingly fixated on labels, expanding categories of illness in ways that can overpathologize everyday experience. It examines how the search for a name – across conditions from neurodiversity to persistent, unexplained symptoms – shapes care, community, and identity, sometimes helping and sometimes harming. It ultimately calls for a more cautious, context-aware approach that balances the relief of diagnosis with the risks of stigma, overtreatment, and misplaced certainty.
Who should read The Age of Diagnosis?
- Skeptical clinicians confronting overdiagnosis and label creep
- Data-minded policymakers shaping evidence-based health guidelines
- Thoughtful people navigating modern diagnostic culture
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