Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2009, 6 503 symptoms or for a doctor to know that the information is available and relevant or notice that a particular condition could be assessed via testing. Consumers are taking it upon themselves to obtain a better understanding, resolution and possible prevention of disease conditions. 2.2.2. Consumer personalized medicine definition The core definition of personalized medicine is using an individual’s specific biological characteristics to tailor therapies to that person, including drugs, drug dosage and other remedies. There are other more expansive descriptions, for example, as offered by the Personalized Medicine Coalition (http://www.personalizedmedicinecoalition.org/sciencepolicy/personalmed- 101_overview.php). Part of the change in how health and health care are now being understood and realized is in using systemic personalized medicine approaches to individuals (Box 2). A systemic approach may incorporate a combination of an individual’s genetic, blood and other biomarker, environmental, lifestyle and other data. Consumer personalized medicine is the further step of individuals collecting and synthesizing their own data and using it to proactively manage their health. Box 2. Quoted excerpts regarding a systemic approach to personalized medicine. “The health of each person is a unique combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors. Not everyone who has a disease has it for the same reasons or with the same severity.” – Alex Bangs, CEO Entelos (http://entelos.com/virtualPatients.php) “The Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University finds that four in five Americans support the idea of a nationwide study to investigate the interactions of genes, environment and lifestyle, and three in five would be willing to take part in such a study.” – David Duncan, ExperimentalMan (http://experimentalman.com/blog/?p=55) “The National Institute of Standards and Technology wants genomics, proteomics, and other biomedical researchers to submit ideas about needed advances in personalized medicine, and has asked for white papers detailing these pitches.” – Genome Web (http://www.genomeweb.com/issues/news/151548-1.html) 2.2.3. Categories and types of consumer personalized medicine Four areas of consumer personalized medicine are discussed here: direct-to-consumer personalized genomics services, blood and other biomarker testing, environmental testing and predictive biosimulation. Personalized genomics