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?

Ya know, I have not a clue What to think about this. I would not hurt myself like that no point in living if you will not be happy. However. I end up perishing does not matter to me. I will enjoy what years I have the best I can.

U got ur maths wrong. Fix it before we can discuss.

Risk awareness is an interesting topic.

Maybe she didn't care particularly about those organs in the first place... who knows.

Well, depends on how old she was and what she planned for her life. I feel it's kind of rushed though, probably better to have regular examinations. Might still get cancer, but that'd already only a possibility, and then to get cancer on all three... eh, no idea about statistics on these things, but I can't see it being overly likely.

But as for barely qualifying as human, nah, not in my view. She doesn't have boobs, that's about it. We don't know anything about how old she is, whether she planned to have kids, already has the kids she planned or any of those things. So while ovaries and uterus removal might have some side effects (though doctors apparently decided it was justified, it's not like you can go and get rid of random organs), they hardly symbolize the essence of being human.


Personally I'd just wait and see. I hate surgeries though, and I wouldn't put myself through one just to avoid a possibility in the future. Might get run over by a car before cancer makes it.

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. 

lol lestat, it's not that she wanted to avoid offspring with a higher risk of getting cancer, she was afraid that she would get cancer herself.

There are other means of birth-control than cutting out your uterus you know.

Hahaha, I hadn't even thought of that as a contraceptive. Though objectively, it's a pretty good measure.

I know, I was just approaching his 40% and 4 in 10 copies parameter :P 

Anyway, that was a dumb thing to do. Even by cutting out her sexual organs, the mutation is still there in all of the cells in her body. While the mutated gene has more expression on her sexual parts, there can be protein transcripition from pretty much anywhere, if the cancerous gene begins to transcribe itself or copy itself into more parts of her chromossome (it's called transposons, not going to go into much detail here).
Even if she did that to avoid getting cancer, chances are she can still get cancer from anywhere. Her bones, her lungs, her skin, her colon, etc, etc, etc.