I suspect that the Covid epidemic will have another long-lasting impact on our society.
This will be the innovations that come from the study of mental health, as we now have a global society that has experienced a traumatic event(s) and are suffering from PTSD as a result.
This is on my mind because I recently gave a DNA sample to a company called Genomind, which claims to be able to create a link between your genetic make up and your mental health capabilities.
Always one to be the self-biohacker, I figured it was worth a shot.
I swabbed my cheek and sent away the sample.
About a week later, I received a report detailing the genes that I possess and the things that they are commonly associated with.
For example, I have a gene that is associated with overeating and not being able to register the feeling of “full.”
I have another gene that is strongly correlated with addiction to alcohol (I don’t drink, so that’s good news). Yet another gene is correlated with the need for a higher than average amount of sleep (something I have been working on). And finally, a gene that is correlated to people who have a “negative bias.”
Now, I have know way of knowing if this is data or, as Biden might say, “malarkey,” but assuming it’s accurate, it was fascinating to learn and understand myself a bit better.
I expect that we’ll see more and more of these tests in the years to come and the prices will continue to fall. We’ll see the FAANGs get into this more and more because if they know your DNA predispositions, well, they can monetize that as well.
So the good news is that, as we learn more about mental health, the stigma is removed, more people get tested, and data sets improve, we’ll have better treatment.
The bad news is that a centralized entity (hint: blockchain goes here) can abuse this information for potentially nefarious purposes (e.g. Genomind’s database isn’t open so I don’t know what they are doing with my data), all kinds of risks emerge.
Still, Covid provides the fodder for a potential revolution in mental health.
