Feeling a bit sick?Maybe it's all because of our genes.Recent studies conducted at UQ's School of Biological Sciences suggests that the increasing number of diseases at present is due our genes being unable to cope up with the new,western lifestyle.
In the past few generations the change in the environment wasn't gradual unlike in the early years.Due to this, the susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer's, cancer and diabetes have risen.Our food habits, pathogens we're exposed to and the psychological stresses we encounter all contribute.According to Professor Greg Gibson, the author of the book 'It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life Is Making Us Sick' , it states “The rapid cultural change means our genes are no longer in a comfort zone – that's pushed us outside of the realm that the genome can normally tolerate.Because of that, we've gone from one percent of people being susceptible to these diseases to more like 10 or 15 percent.”
Also included in the book is the idea that the evolution rate of genes is much slower than environmental change.Thus, genetic susceptibility isn't the sole reason of disease epidemics.It's more likely that environmental change is to blame.
In addition, Professor Gibson stated that having the knowledge of which genes were responsible for certain disease, wasn't adequate enough to predict who would get sick.“If we know our genes we have a better guess at who's predisposed to certain diseases, but we have to understand a whole lot more than that,” he said.This book actually started out as a response to Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene, so I wanted to get the message across that, rather than us being robots that are slaves to our genes, genes are communities that work together.”
Original article - http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=17418
By W.N.Piyumi Fernando (41910607)
