Andrew Zaleski has spent three years covering health and nutrition for GQ. "I am just a reporter," he writes, but delving into what's best for the body has caused him to change his diet and warm to other health habits in a quest for everything from better sleep to a more robust immune system. It's "a natural consequence of learning about this world"—except his world, in particular, involves something healthy habits can't fix. In December 2021, Zaleski was diagnosed with myotonic dystrophy, a form of muscular dystrophy. In the smallest of ways, it was a relief: an explanation for the symptoms that started at age 31; 20 months of everything from reduced grip strength to cramping in his jaw and tongue to vision problems.
But "no matter how much I optimize, how much I exercise, regardless of the foods I eat or the supplements I take, I can’t escape this diagnosis," writes Zaleski. "What does being healthy mean when you know you can’t improve?" If it sounds like a question that will lead to a despondent answer, Zaleski doesn't go that route: He takes a reporter's stance, digging into (and explaining) what the two words that make up his diagnosis mean and then diving into the science that determines his symptoms. It all revolves around a gene called DMPK, which contains a repeating series of C-T-G DNA bases. Generally, when C-T-G repeats itself more than 50 times, myotonic dystrophy is the result. Zaleski has 140 repeats. His symptom-free father, who was unaware he had myotonic dystrophy until his son's diagnosis, has 68; people with more than 1,000 typically experience symptoms at birth. (Read the full essay for more on what that knowledge brought him.)
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