Potential for Averting Genetic Disaster 

According to a study published in Nature Biotechnology, researchers have sifted through hundreds of thousands of individuals, sifting through scans of their genomes, looking for patterns in their genetics to figure out what keeps people healthy. They found 13 individuals who had gene variants that would normally result in one of eight debilitating conditions including cystic fibrosis, Pfeiffer syndrome, and Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome.

These normal, healthy people are rare individuals and, “most possess some combination of factors – genetic or environmental – that protects them from an otherwise crippling disease,” said one geneticist.

The goal would be to find enough of these people to isolate the protective mechanisms that kept these special individuals healthy and duplicate in those dealing with serious illnesses. The reason this is a new revelation is because scanning that many genomes was just not possible before. But with big data and faster processing it can be now.

There were still some limitations to the study and more work will have to be conducted.

For more information, click the links.

http://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2016-04-diseases-genetic-destiny-averted.html

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nbt.3514.html

Razi Berry, Founder and Publisher of Naturopathic Doctor News & Review (ndnr.com) and NaturalPath (thenatpath.com), has spent the last decade as a natural medicine advocate and marketing whiz. She has galvanized and supported the naturopathic community, bringing a higher quality of healthcare to millions of North Americans through her publications. A self-proclaimed health-food junkie and mother of two; she loves all things nature, is obsessed with organic gardening, growing fruit trees (not easy in Phoenix), laughing until she snorts, and homeschooling. She is a little bit crunchy and yes, that is her real name.