Patients can now use a home-testing kit to discover whether they are at risk of developing the brittle bone disease, osteoporosis.
Similar kits are already available to test for allergies and susceptibility to heart disease.
And similar kits could soon be available for a wide range of diseases. There are now hundreds of genetic tests that predict the likelihood of develoing inherited diseases. Some companies in the US are already offering gene tests for breast cancer. In Britain some firms are already thinking of offering gene tests for heart disease and asthma. The manufacturers are hailing the development as a revolution in health care.