TIME
· collected 2026-08-24 · by Dr. Matthew S. Davenport
The article, written from the perspective of a radiologist, explores the relationship between medical testing and health outcomes. The key point made by the author is that more medical testing doesn't always lead to better health, as tests must accurately predict or diagnose conditions and result in beneficial changes in behavior. According to the author, many medical professionals initially believed that early diagnosis would always improve health, but research has shown that this is not always the case, with some diagnostic tests leading to unnecessary treatment and harm to patients. The article cites examples of small thyroid masses and kidney masses, where aggressive treatment did not help most people.
Written by the local model on 2026-08-24,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
Today, if you wish, you can go get a staggering amount of granular data about your health without your doctor’s involvement.
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you → wish → involvement
All on your own, you can get an MRI of your entire body, a CT of your coronary calcium, an ultrasound of your blood vessels, and maybe someday an immersion ultrasound in a spa.
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you → get → spa
As a radiologist, a doctor specialized in the alchemy of turning information into health, I translate data hidden in images into words that motivate behavior to promote healthier, longer lives.
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that → specialize → lives
, radiologists have grappled for decades with the question of whether and how information improves health.
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information → grapple → health
It turns out to be surprisingly complicated.
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It → turn → ?
In order to make a difference in someone’s health, the test must accurately predict or diagnose a condition, resulting in a change in mindset and behavior, and that change in mindset and behavior must produce a better outcome than not doing the test.
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change → make → test
For example, whole-body MRI of the general public, a test not recommended by any medical guideline, medical society, or payer, creates information by taking a picture of your body.
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MRI → recommend → body
It might change your mind by finding something you didn’t know about, like a small mass in your kidney or thyroid gland, which then might change what you or your doctor does.
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you → change → what
For example, your doctor might order another test to better understand if the mass is important or perform surgery to take it out.
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mass → order → it
This seems logical.
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This → seem → ?
But the reason whole-body MRI of the general public isn’t recommended while other screening tests are is because in the absence of evidence, it is believed to be unlikely to produce a better outcome than doing nothing at all.
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it → recommend → nothing
Many people think, as I once did, that early diagnosis always improves health.
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diagnosis → think → health
Finding something with a diagnostic test might not help, despite creating an illusion that it does.
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it → find → illusion
For both examples I gave—small thyroid masses, small kidney masses—it has been well documented that aggressive efforts to treat them, despite many being cancer, does not help most people.
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many → give → people
Yet despite ourselves, we keep finding and removing them.
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we → find → them
That’s the tricky thing with diagnostic tests.
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That → ’ → tests
It’s terrifically hard to unsee something.
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It → ’ → something
For those who receive no benefit from treatment, only secondary harm results: surgical pain and complications, the anxiety of a scary diagnosis, and financial burden.
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harm → receive → diagnosis
There are numerous non-intuitive examples like this in which only in retrospect do we realize patients have been harmed because a diagnostic test and its downstream actions were promoted to millions before confirming things worked as intended.
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things → be → millions
It’s really hard to know if something is hurting or helping if we rely on common sense.
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we → ’ → sense
The likelihood of benefit and the likelihood of harm matter tremendously.
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likelihood → matter → harm
For example, if whole-body MRI is performed on a high-risk patient with a cancer-causing genetic syndrome, it is much more likely to create health benefits than if it were to be performed in the general population.
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it → perform → population
It’s not just about test accuracy.
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It → ’ → accuracy
Equally important is the people being tested, because baseline risk strongly influences the benefits.
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risk → test → benefits
Harm is often caused not by the test itself, but from actions taken to manage the information of unknown significance it produces.
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it → cause → significance
It is in this way that a seemingly harmless test can hurt people.
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test → hurt → people
We do tests to find things, and when we find things, we commonly act, even when we shouldn’t, because we aren’t rational decision-makers.
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we → do → things
Direct-to-consumer testing will change how medicine is practiced.
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medicine → change → consumer
It empowers us to make personal decisions about our health and generates novel, complex information that will unlock scientific breakthroughs.
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that → empower → breakthroughs
When buying one of these tests, we should pay attention to what the company is claiming.
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company → buy → what
The need for scientific support, informed disclosure, and regulatory compliance increases as the test moves from curiosity toward clinical care.
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test → increase → care
If the test has only been shown to provide information or to make a diagnosis, or has only been shown to improve health in patients with specific risk factors different from our own, we should be skeptical.
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we → show → own
As they say, buyer beware.
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buyer → say → ?
Many companies encourage us to assume their test improves our health.
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test → encourage → health
In such cases, the information we are buying may help us, hurt us, or be a placebo and do nothing at all.
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we → buy → nothing
