Disease genes: Gene chips developed by Affymetrix can assess 500,000 genetic markers in a single experiment. By using the chips to scan the genomes of thousands of patients, scientists have uncovered genes linked to common diseases, such as diabetes.
Affymetrix
A study of seven illnesses, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease, identifies new candidate genes.
A massive genetic study carried out in the United Kingdom has pinpointed 24 genetic markers that increase risk for illnesses such as diabetes, arthritis, and Crohn's disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease. The findings illustrate the success of a new approach to gene hunting known as genome-wide association, made possible by recent advances in gene-sequencing technologies. The results were published in this week's issue of Nature.
"This is a powerful way of identifying genes for common diseases," says Anne Bowcock, a geneticist at Washington University Medical School, in Saint Louis. "These genes will point to altered pathways that will then point to novel therapies."
Scientists analyzed 500,000 genetic markers in each of 17,000 people, making it the largest such study to date. By comparing the DNA of 2,000 patients with one of seven different diseases--Crohn's disease, type 1 and 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis, and bipolar disorder--with 3,000 healthy controls, researchers identified 24 genetic regions strongly linked to specific diseases: one in bipolar disorder, one in coronary-artery disease, nine in Crohn's disease, three in rheumatoid arthritis, seven in type 1 diabetes, and three in type 2 diabetes. Known as the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, the project is a collaboration among 50 different research groups.
Unlike diseases such as Huntington's, in which a single genetic marker guarantees that the carrier will develop the disease, common diseases are triggered by a complex array of factors, including multiple genes each exerting a modest effect. Unlocking their genetic secrets has been a challenge, but recent advances in gene-sequencing technology have allowed scientists to take a new approach to gene hunting. Rather than searching through the DNA of specific target genes or afflicted families--approaches that have had little success for common diseases--scientists are scouring the entire genomes of large numbers of people.
By examining the entire genome, scientists find genes they never expected would be involved in a particular disease. And the massive size of such studies--the Wellcome study, for example, included almost 10 billion pieces of DNA--gives the statistical power needed for researchers to find genetic variations that raise the risk of disease by a modest amount.
In this case, scientists used a gene chip developed by Affymetrix, a genetic technology company based in Santa Clara, CA. The gene chip assesses 500,000 genetic markers in a single experiment. By comparing genetic variations in healthy people with those of people with the disease of interest, scientists can pinpoint genes that boost a person's risk of the disease by as little as 20 percent.
Genome-wide association studies have generated new insight into the devastating eye disease.
A project aims to convert the slew of newly identified disease-risk genes into useful medical information.
TomTom,
I'd appreciate if you could email me pointers to your research. I think you have the right approach, the timeless one in that 'food should be our medicine' and 'medicine should be our food'.
My home email is: embo@shaw.ca.
Thanks in advance.
"scientists are scouring the entire genomes of large numbers of people."
at 2million dollars each i doubt that they are doing this. i thought the xprize was not yet won. Does the artical mean that whole genome work was done on these thousands of people. ?
They didn't sequence the whole genomes, only scanned for SNPs using microarrays.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
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TomTom
29 Comments
Genes are not the cause
There was no coronary heart disease in 1900. The first article in a medical journal was in 1911. It was so rare that there was no insurance code or government code for it until 1930.
Crohn's disease is an emotional disease and has been cured with hypnosis. Schafer DW Hypnosis and the treatment of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Am J Clin Hypn. 1997 Oct 40 (2) 111-7. You can find this on PubMed and several others. Rheumatoid arthritis is also an emotional disease and has been cured by hypnosis.
Type two diabetes is a deficiency of chromium and vanadium. Correct that, and there is no diabetes. Type 1 has been cured by vanadium as well, reported by a medicinal school in British Columbia.
Genes are expressed in regard to environment conditions. There is a gene that can be detected when a person smokes. But it cannot be detected when they stop smoking. The same is true for people who drink alcohol.
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gabrielg01
450 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
The study missed the genes for madness. But don't worry, those will be found too. Then maybe people like TomTom can look forward to a cure. Hopefully.
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rglater
1 Comment
Re: Genes are not the cause
What is the key stroke emoticon for a spit take?
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TomTom
29 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
Why don't you do some research! It might give you a new perspective.
And by the way, almost all mental illness is nutritional deficiencies. But Big Harma (not a typo) does not want you to know that. They make too much money doing things they they do.
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Buckwheat469
34 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
I really suggest when you make stupid comments about genes not being the problem that you don't base your evidence on a single account of an individual being "cured" by some wholistic mean. I'm a type 1 diabetic and I can guarantee you that no suppliment will ever cure me. There has been research into different treatments, like islet cell transplant, but these are controversial and mostly don't work (because the immune system still kills off the new islet cells). Other work has been done, as reported on technology review, by injecting the pancreatic nerves with capsaisin, which overloads the nerves and resets them. In mice this "cures" them temporarily of Diabetes, but no work has been done on humans yet.
People have said many things about suppliments and foods, like the Kombucha mushroom tea cures, but none of these "cures" have ever been proven to work on everyone. There is no panacea, even in medicine.
Please stop trying to be smart and disproving real research with your tales of single individuals being miraculously cured. Next we'll start thinking we can have a hand put to our head, say "Praise Jesus," and be cured of our diseases as we fall to the ground!
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TomTom
29 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
Why don't you do some research for yourself! I have done mine.
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Buckwheat469
34 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
You say "Why don't you do some research for yourself! I have done mine," but you don't realize why diseases like coronary heart disease and the likes were so rare in the past. Let's think logically about this instead of being sensationalistic - in the 1900's there was not a need to categorize why people over the age of 70 died, they just got old and their bodies shut down. Only the relatively young would have had some sort of autopsy if they lived in a city or near a hospital. Since most of the country was farm land and the nearest cities to people were many miles away this process would not happen very often. Some households probably buried their own family members with very little being said to a doctor.
As a result of your insistence to do my own research, I have.
What you said:
"Type 1 has been cured by vanadium as well, reported by a medicinal school in British Columbia."
What is actually reported:
"Early studies showed that vanadium normalized blood glucose levels in animals with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. A recent study found that when people with diabetes were given vanadium, they developed a modest increase in insulin sensitivity and were able to decrease their insulin requirements." (http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/alternativetherapies/)
A normalization and increased sensitivity is not a cure, it is essentially the same effect that Aspirin has on a Diabetic - to help regulate blood sugars.
Also, your comment about Crohn's disease is absolutely incorrect.
What you said:
"Crohn's disease is an emotional disease and has been cured with hypnosis."
What is actually true:
"For years, many people have argued that forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, including Crohn’s Disease, is caused by emotional stress, tension, and anxiety; this, however, is completely inaccurate. While there may be links to emotional stress and Crohn’s Disease, it is not a cause of the disorder." (http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/1-20-2006-86820.asp)
To counter one more comment - "Genes are expressed in regard to environment conditions" - this is true, as it was reported on TR, but it is a function of a defense mechanism to protect the cells. Sometimes these defenses, if triggered in the right pattern can encode to allow a disease to penetrate, but humans have evolved switches which regulate what happens when we get into various environmental conditions. Why else can we handle Ethyl Alcohol but worms dissolve completely in it?
Please, TomTom, when you blast people for not doing their research, can you at least do your own and not base your opinion on sensational reports from holistic medical journals that don't do real research?
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TomTom
29 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
Hi,
Not only have I done my research, you are citing non-medical journals. Why don't you check out the "Schafer DW Hypnosis and the treatment of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Am J Clin Hypn. 1997 Oct 40 (2) 111-7."
I am a hynotherapist, and I have cured a woman of ulcerative colitis which she had for 9 months. I saw her on Friday, and it was gone on Monday. I used Schafer's technique, who is a psychiatrist.
Why don't you check out what's on PubMed? The article about vanadium is not on PubMed's site.
You might want to look at an article on Reuters:
Human instruction book not so simple: studies
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN1338205520070613
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Buckwheat469
34 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
What you said:
"You might want to look at an article on Reuters:
Human instruction book not so simple: studies
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN1338205520070613"
Where the story actually comes from:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6749213.stm
I checked the extra stories at the bottom of TR and found a similar title to the article you linked to, "Human Genome Further Unravelled
6/14/2007 | via BBC news
New analysis of the genome could shatter the traditional view of “junk DNA,” long sequences thought to have no purpose. Most junk DNA does seem to be active."
This story is copyrighted by the BBC, so Reuters is only piecing the story together. In college we would call this plagiarism, but Reuters may have some agreement with the BBC so I'll just liken it to plagiarism by someone.
I noticed in the Reuters article that it seemed a little chopped, like the writer either didn't know what they were talking about or they cut and pasted the content from somewhere else. Now I know that the latter is true.
Again, I urge you to do your research and stop using holistic journals, like the "Schafer DW Hypnosis and the treatment of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Am J Clin Hypn. 1997 Oct 40 (2) 111-7." I wouldn't exactly call hypnosis a medical practice, more a mental slight of hand, if you will. It's very similar to massages and chiropractic therapy. Neither are medical in nature, but both can be helpful in certain situations. Likewise, they can be harmful if not used properly.
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TomTom
29 Comments
Re: Genes are not the cause
You have declared yourself to be a quack. It was herbalists that created the term to apply to chemical medicine.
Quack originated during the Renaissance when quicksilver or mercury was a popular remedy for syphilis. Wandering peddlers known as "quacksalvers" sold mercury ointment. They would claim that their agents would cure all diseases.
Hypnosis can cure an allergy in 45 minutes because it is a conditioned response. Hypnosis can also cure asthma because it is brought on by "fear breathing". That pumps carbon dioxide out of the body which causes muscle spasms. It can also cause heart palpitations.
A chiropractor cure me of migraines. Hypnosis can help bones heal up to 50% faster.
Schizophrenia has been cured with niacin and vitamin C since 1952. Abram Hoffer has cured 5000 people, two went on to become psychiatrists themselves.
You need to do more research before you spout off.
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