Kaiser Permanente in N. California, which includes Sacramento and San Francisco areas along with scientists at the University of California, San Francisco will be looking at the DNA of patients who volunteered to submit their DNA to see how long their telomeres are which may be related to longevity and rate of aging, among other issues. The specific segments of DNA to be explored and studied also relate to racial-related differences in risks of certain diseases. Did you volunteer to send in your DNA if you're a Kaiser Permanente HMO patient? Check out the July 6, 2011 Sacramento Bee article by Lynn La, "DNA study has details from 100,000 Kaiser patients." The print version of the Sacramento Bee article also is titled, "Huge DNA study will analyze 100,000: Kaiser, UCSF collect data to look at many health factors."
What's the purpose of this study as it applies specifically to you, as an individual, in case your HMO is the local Sacramento, Davis, or San Francisco Kaiser Permanente? Will it help you change your diet and lifestyle habits? Or will you have to change your entire environment and attitude if when the DNA database study merges with your particular medical records to give you a clearer picture of your health risks or rewards--so you may tailor your drugs, vitamins, and foods to your DNA? But your entire genome is not going to be explored.
It's a specific area of your DNA which will be studied and put into the database and then linked to your medical records. That's because looking at just a few genes saves time and money....and besides, humans are so much alike, it isn't necessary to look at the entire genome....Or is it? What will be influenced by the knowlegde of your DNA linked to your medical records--your health habits and foods? Your medicine? Or people who want to control the drugs you take, the food you eat, and even your health care insurance premiums?
Sure, outside agencies won't have access to your medical records or your genes--but for how many years? Is any database's secrecy really guaranteed for your lifetime or your offpring's possible inheritance of genes from you? But who is going to interpret the genetic test results for you as to what they mean--in reality? The science is still in its infancy. And without your entire genome, how do you really know how to tailor your life and what goes into your body to your genetic signature? You have nothing to fear, in this generation.
Perhaps linking your DNA risks to your medical records might even help you avoid eating what's bad. Or maybe you're told to change lifestyle, activities, or environment. On another note, it may provide an answer to what dosages of medicines are safe for you and which might have adverse reactions or none. Or will your DNA remain in the database without much ado that specifically applies to your health when it comes to your care and feeding this generation?
One hundred thousand patients in the recent past were sent a kit through the mail where they could send in a saliva sample, if they volunteered their DNA to be studied. Now the DNA will be combined with medical records and DNA-processing robots. Geneticists study the information, just from a few specific areas of the DNA and not of the entire genome.
These 100,000 patients have volunteered their DNA , to develop a resource that geneticists see as an unprecedented opportunity to study human health. It takes a lot of money to study the DNA of patients to see what genetic risks they run for various diseases. Would you want to know how short or long your telomeres are, which some scientists surmise might predict how long you live--maybe? Or would you be interested to find out how high the risk may be for certain diseases that are attributed to genetic variations which you may or may not have?
Or does the environment and your lifestyle switch on or off the little epigenetic tags on the genes to cause or not cause the disease predicted? Or perhaps it's the risk the scientists emphasize, not the certainty of developing the disease? See the sites, Researchers find link between telomeres and longevity, Telomeres and Aging - Understanding Cellular Aging, Telomere.net, Telomeres, and Are Telomeres the Key to Aging and Cancer?
The project has been funded by a $24.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Scientists from the two institutions--Kaiser and University of California, San Francisco recently finished analyzing more than 100,000 DNA samples voluntarily sent to them by Northern California Kaiser members. The name of the project is the The Research Program on Genes, Environment, and Health (RPGEH). And this study is the largest project of its type ever done.
First, you have to look at the database of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH database contains information from similar genome-wide association studies. But the Kaiser study is going to be the largest deposit at this time. How much influence is lifestyle? What about environment? The DNA went to UCSF for a comprehensive study.
The scientists looked at 675,000 to 900,000 genomic regions, also known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Then researchers genotyped specific regions of each sample. The lengths of telomeres, which cap the ends of chromosomes were analyzed. The telomeres are like strings with caps at the end that with age wear down.
Scientists are interested in studying telomeres because they are revealing information on how you age, perhaps your predicted life span, and other clues to health and biological aging which differs from chronological aging. Everybody ages at different rates individually, regardless of your age in numbers. Some people age faster than others. The aging and disease process and perhaps longevity may be related to the length of your telomeres. There are certain diets and lifestyle changes you can make to make sure your telomeres don't wear down and get too short too quickly, in some cases.
Telomeres tell scientists about health and aging because they shorten as you age. Scientists now think that telomeres are a good indication for biological aging rather than only looking at chronological aging. The only issue is that the Kaiser system patients also have a thorough medical history connected to each sample, especially if the patients have been with Kaiser for many years, which forms a type of life long study of health records matched to DNA research on each patient who has participated in sending in DNA samples.
You might also check out the websites of The Research Program on Genes, Environment, and Health and Institute for Human Genetics | UCSF Institute for Human Genetics for more information on the various projects such as which projects follow the life-long health, lifestyle, and environments of patients coupled with studies of certain segments of their DNA chosen to look at patient's health records over many years. Most of the patients studied have been with Kaiser Permanente HMOs for more than a decade.
Researchers easily have access to ongoing health records of each patient. How do you feel about knowing this much information about yourself, privacy concerns, and whether you'd want to know what your risks are? Or would you rather just go by what your parents and grandparents or their siblings might have had regarding health risks. DNA tells more about a patient than just your blood tests or other measurements such as blood pressure.
How do you feel about DNA used to study a particular disease?
Do you agree or disagree with some scientists who believe that a particular DNA signature or expression may to some extent predict a disease? Do you think the entire genome needs to be studied and not just a specific segment of the DNA to predict risk or disease? Would there be other factors such as environment, attitude, lifestyle, diet, nutritional supplements, foods, or even faith that can switch off gene tags that cause disease? The study of gene tags that switch on or off certain genes is the field of epigenetics. See, Epigenetics, DNA: How You Can Change Your Genes, Destiny - TIME. Epigenetics refers to the study of changes produced in gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, according to the Wikipedia definition of the term, 'epigenetics.'
Can DNA predict health risks or issues in your future?
DNA is not destiny. See the article, DNA Is Not Destiny | Genetics | Discover Magazine. Can DNA predict health or only raised percentages regarding risks to health? And what about race and ethnic differences in health, especially when the races are mixed? What scientists are studying are how genes and the environment can influence aging, physical and mental health, and cognitive functions. But the entire genome isn't studied because some scientists think people are so much alike that it's only necessary to study a few genes or a specific area of the DNA.
Analyzing a few regions instead of sequencing the entire DNA sample saves time and money. The scientists genotyped more than 2,000 samples per week so they could perhaps beat the clock to finish in 15 months, maybe, so to speak, before the money from the funding ran out.
Time seems to be of the essence. If they had to do full sequencing, scientists would have been slowed down to two to four people a week perhaps. But what the scientists needed focuses on sample size. You need large numbers of people in the size of the sample. The Institute for Human Genetics | UCSF Institute for Human Genetics (UCSF), Kaiser Permanente, and any other research or academic institution have access to the genetic information in the study through the NIH database and Kaiser's Web portal, but first the institution has to register. Are you worried about insurance companies grabbing your medical records and raising your rates if your genes show short telomeres which they might interpret as short lifespan without knowing all the facts? Forget it, at least for now, because medical records and the identities of the sample providers are not going to go to outsiders. So the information stays in the database.
In years down the line, who might get hold of your records so private they include what risks are predicted by your genes? Could this become an ethnic issue with some people? After all, researchers speculated that the project could be used to investigate race-related health disparities and prescription drug reactions. Scientists already know that certain ethnic groups may require different dose levels of particular medicines. But what happens if your race is mixed?
Or maybe your race already has been mixed for hundreds or even thousands of years and you don't know until your DNA is tested? And if you have a few genes of one or another mixtures of races, would it really matter when it comes to adjusting dose levels of medicines or even diets? You might as well tailor your food to your genetic expression by looking at your metabolic response to foods. You may want to browse the book, How to Safely Tailor Your Food, Medicines, & Cosmetics - iUniverse. And so the research continues.
Comments