How Can Genetics Affect Your Health
Genetics plays a major role in determining potential risks to our health and our health habits. Identical twins or un-identical twins tend to have similar eating habits and health patterns. Researches have shown that identical twins share same genotype, which is one of the ways you can identify the relation between human genes and diseases. Many people have a wrong perception about genes and do not know about potential health risks that they inherit from their parents. They are always confused about the point that how can genetics affect one’s health? The answer to this is quite simple and interesting.
We stared off our discussion with genotype. It determines different variations of a same gene. It distinguishes us from people who we belong to. A large collection of genotype contributes towards making one phenotype. The phenotype entirely doesn’t determine our health traits. There are some environmental and social factors involved in a person’s upbringing that helps in determining the health and habits. Genetics help in determining the risks of diseases in a person that have already prevailed in your ancestors. For example Thelesimia is a genetic disease. Blood cancer or leukemia can also be inherited. Similarly TB is also hereditary disease. These life threatening diseases are more likely to occur genetically than because of environmental factors.
There are many factors that involved genetics in your health. Your height, weight, built, eating habits, social interaction, intelligence and intellectual level etc are determined by genes. Children tend to have same eye color as of their parents. They have same height and same features as their parents and ancestors. You cannot change these features are they reside in the genes. There are only little ways to improve them. For example if you have a very skinny body structure then you will have it for the rest of your lives if it resides in your genes. You can improve your eating habits by including vitamins and minerals in your diet. You can increase your appetite by having healthy meals and exercise sessions.
Many people know about the medical history of their parents and grandparents and therefore are aware that they can adopt some disease at some point in their lives. There is a genetic scan, which is quite expensive to determine the family and disease traits that prevail in families. It is evident from many researches that more than 50 percent of your health is determined by inheriting it from parents. There are ways in which you can improve your health but genetic traits cannot be eliminated completely.
There are genetic tests available for women oriented cancers like Breast cancer and Ovarian cancer. If the testing results positive, then it is more likely that you will develop cancer sooner or later in your lives. If the result is negative then you don’t need to worry about it. You need to be aware of the cancer symptoms so that whenever you experience something unusual, you can report to your doctor.
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We know type 1 diabetes is as much affected by genes as it is by lifestyle and environment. But a huge international study found that there could be as many as 41 genetic loci that affect the risk of type 1 diabetes!
When you practice prevention individualized to your genetic profile, your genes will have little or no effect of your health risk. In the future, genetic testing will be more commonplace. It will help your doctor target medicines.
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