What? An ounce of prevention and a pound of cure and all that. Early detection is key in a lot of situations, so how could earlier not be better? Why wait unnecessarily?
The cure may statistically be worse than doing nothing.
For example, prostate cancer can kill, but more people die with prostate cancer than of prostate cancer, in the latter case often with minor symptoms.
Detecting it before it bothers people helps those it would kill, but subjects lots of others to testing, and those tests will initially have false positives that unnecessarily stress those it wouldn’t kill.
Worse, the side effects of treatment can include incontinence and erectile dysfunction that can significantly affect quality of life for those were follow-up tests also produce false positives.
So don't ignore symptoms, but don't go looking for them if you're otherwise healthy. Early detection of many things is important... but you don't want everyone getting screened for every disease. You'll just end up with a bunch of false positives, which will cause emotional stress and backup an already overworked medical system.
By all means, don't ignore symptoms! Just don't go looking for them.
