Decision Making Based on Genetics

[lestatdark]

mirgro said:

I was reading a Wired article. Some woman learned she had a gene that icnreased her risk of cancer by 40%. Short story shorter, she cut out her uterus, ovaries, and both breasts.

Those 40% meant that is she made 10 copies of herself, 4 would have breast or ovarian cancer. Yet she decided to mutilate herself and become, quite literally, asexual.

This got me to thinking what I would decide and why. As someone better known than me once said "it's not dying we're afriad of, it's life ending" and if I am at a later part of my life I wouldn't be so scared of life ending since I would have seen enough. I know for a fact that if I was in my early years I would jsut take the chance and screw it, I'm not about to live as something that doesn't even classify as human just for the sake of being alive, and who knows maybe I will be one of the 6 people that didn't have any problems.

What would any of you do?

Actually, it's not like that at all.

A risk of cancer of 40% is based on the comparison between the chromossome where the mutated gene is located versus her entire chromossomical genome. If her overall chromossomical genome has a mutation rate of 1 flaw per 10 replications, a 40% increase would mean that the specific gene would have a 1.4 flaw per 10 replication rates.

And you cannot factor her single genome as a factor for the appearance rate, should she make any copies, because when a new fetus is born, the haploid genome of each gamete (male and female), go through a series of inter-chromossical cross-overs and DNA imprintting which can deactive the entire mutated gene from where she had that high risk.

That means that she could have had kids with no cancer risk whatsoever, or in worst case scenario, the mutation would spread to further genes, creating more risks of cancers in more genes, thus boosting the risk of cancer over a 100% (A person prone to, let's say, ovaries cancer, has a risk of cancer 200% higher than a normal person without the mutations).

So yes, her choice was uninformed, but probably it was the doctors or anyone who accompanied her fault. Any student in basic genetics could tell you these same things, one would believe a doctor would be more specialized on it.