Americans love to be individuals. We hate waiting in line and chafe at being part of a crowd, especially when it comes to our health care.

But just as we stand on the brink of a promising era of personalized and precision medicine — when doctors and hospitals will base treatments on our highly personalized genetic and molecular make-up — we’re also getting corralled too often into medical herds. Pre-diseases, they're called.

The only thing we share in these sizable crowds is that we bear signs suggesting we may, eventually, develop a serious medical condition.

Skeptical experts warn that over-diagnosis of what some dub pre-diseases will result in over-treatment that will cost the country billions of dollars in unneeded care. They also will cause major anxiety and even harm for many, some of whom will be subjected to cascade of follow-on, costly, invasive, and even risky procedures and therapies, including expensive and potentially harmful prescription drugs.

Be skeptical and don’t let yourself, loved ones, or friends be buffaloed into more care than we really need.