The problem we’ve found is that when you get more information, you are more likely to find things that look off somewhere, which may have no real bearing on your actual health but definitely can cause you to have a worse quality of life—whether because of stress or subsequent more invasive tests or just the time and energy it costs you.

This is why there are tests which previously were recommended to a wide range of people on a regular basis which are now only recommended in more limited settings. PSA is a good example of this.

The question to ask is, is doing this test likely to improve my life, or not? And while you probably can’t know the answer for a specific test in your specific case without trying, you can often know the probability that it will improve your life based on statistical analysis of other people who have gotten that test and how it went for them.