@jca I googled a little and found this. I have no idea how legitimate or reliable that company is. If you google “telomere testing price” a few websites come up. The link I gave here is a home test and costs $125 for the telomere only test I think.
@Adagio I think you make a good point, but sometimes objective knowledge is helpful. For instance, I basically believe I am high risk for heart attack. I should, in my mind, do things that are likely to prevent heart disease. Even without any tests, heart disease kills one in three women and many people in my family have heart attacks or heart disease very young. “Eating healthy” is not good enough to just know as a basic idea, because things like testing my cholesterol has given me information that changed how I eat. I am not like the majority. Most people for instance can eat quite a bit of cholesterol and their numbers are fine. I can’t. For me, cholesterol I take sends my numbers right up. I only know because I’ve tested it several times. I’ve narrowed down these things.
The thing I found interesting with the telomeres is one thing they looked at was stress level. People under high stress (they used people who take care of elderly parents or sick relatives) had short telomeres. The thing was, once the stress was relieved their telomeres grew again. The researchers didn’t know if it was a flexible or reversible thing, but it seems it is. I think people aren’t great at perceiving how stress is affecting them. This is only one aspect of why I am curious about the testing.