Do genes cause disease or disorders?

It's funny how when people develop problems the medical industry tries to link the problem to genetics... This appears to be false... In fact science has not been able to link any disorder with a specific gene...

The most recent blurb I saw in the news is this lady who has been trying to prove that her gay son has a genetic disorder and that is why he's gay... Fact is there is no gene associated with someone being attracted to the opposite sex... Same goes for people who are overweight, have ADD, AADD, cancer or any other disorder or disease... At least that is what I'm hearing in this video... So how do you explain this? From what I saw in this video it's our surroundings and the environment that play the roll... What do you think?

Please watch this video and by all means try to prove her wrong...



[edit on 24-3-2008 by ElectricUncleSam]

[edit on 24-3-2008 by ElectricUncleSam]






Mod Edit: All cap title altered. Please see The use of All Caps Thank you - Jak

[edit on 25/3/08 by JAK]

I'm a doctor, and I can safely tell you that genes do in fact cause many disorders. They are provable, and they are numerous. There also is a gene that makes lab rats gay and those types of research generally yield human results as well. There are genes that make people fat, and there are genes that give people cancer. To suggest otherwise is absolute nonsense from someone with no training or participation in genetics or the medical field, sorry to burst your bubble. But there are medical things we don't know, so hopefully people wil keep looking.

reply to post by Ruggeder


Everything the girl is talking about is not true? I know I don't have experience I just try to use common sense and put the pieces together... Thank you for your post, I'd like to know more about the research and development, do you think you can share with me information on some of the claims you have made?

As someone with two diagnosed illness, both of which are genetic related(is that the right way to say it?), Id have to say this seems to be abig of hogwash. I'm not trying to attack the OP, but it sounds like a bunch of BS to me.

Tela

reply to post by Telafree


It very well could be, but on the same token what your doctors tell you could also be a bunch of hogwash... Here is a question to ask your doctor... Ask him why they can make glowing animals and fish, but they can't cure your diseases...Or ask him why it's so easy to grow an ear on a rat, but not to program your immune system to attack the cancer cells or treat your current conditions... I'm sorry to hear you have diseases i will say a prayer for you... It just upsets me sometimes when I see all the available technology being used for unnecessary things, like glowing fish...

If you do ask your doctor those questions I'd be very interested in hearing what he tells you... If he tells you, oh well it's much more complicated than what they are doing with animals, then it would be interesting to know why...

Ruggeder do you want to throw in on this, maybe answer those questions for me?

We had a 50 years or so to research this complex structure. An enormous part of it we still call junk, because we do not know what it does or because we think that we know it is a mistakes/contaminations. So this is not clear. Plus, to genome (which deals with genes we have and their status) there is proteom which might be even more complex (and it deals with all the proteins,its shapes,properties,modules and ctr). There are people who say we should look also into all different lipids in our body as a group, all different carbohydrates as a group. So it is all very complex and we basically know not much. To all this i add that most of diseases are a result of person status (and here genes play most important role) and an environment which is not less important. This means that people with same genes living in different conditions will not present the same fixtures - both externally (height) and internally (EXPRESSION of their genes).
Thus being said ,there are numerous examples of deseases that arise from a single gene malfunction (still less then scientist thought at first, this is due to above mentioned complexity).
Examples:
Cystic fibrosis
www.medterms.com...
Sickle cell disease
www.medterms.com...
And there are much much more.
You can use any search engine ,enter "single gene diseases".
There are also diseases involving several genes,a lot harder to spot.
In both of them environment can play only a minor part.
Hope it helps.

huh, there are genetic disorders. now the human genome projects intent was to map a single gene for everything, and they came up over 80,000 genes short. in the sense that they were seeking to find a cancer gene, a gay gene, and basically have it like, well, i will take out this gene that causes this, and wala, it will vanish. wrong.
so there is still much to unravel. the environment does contribute much to a persons overall development, and i feel is overlooked alot. i believe that field is called epigenetics. if you want to kinda read a little more into something about genes, and a little bit of a different view on stuff. pick up bruce liptons book, the biology of belief. it goes into epigenetics, and also more stuff about how you and your environment have much to do with how you, and your body is shaped.

i have to reamp up on my stuff, but it has alot to do with protein combinations and the such, and not just, oh, gene1 causes this, and gene2 causes that. hence why the human genome project failed in its regard to map a single gene for this and for that. its more complex than that. etc...

gonna go watch a movie. maybe ill update later when i get home and crack a book, and do some searching

[edit on 25-3-2008 by jimmy1200]

sorry, i didnt really get a chance to re up and make a better post. ill try to get around to it, but just know that, there is more than meets the eye, and dont always listen to someone spouting off their conventional medical views, because there is evidence saying the opposite, and since the opposite view always ends up being something more natural, like herbs, fruits, emotions, environment, thoughts, etc..., that can help a person relieve themselves of their pain, and or disease, it is not as profitable, and thus, there is no need for it. some may say bull#, and i tell you, that i dont give a damn what your profession is, you need to crack open a few books.

contrary to what you may believe, there are plenty of folks in the medical field, or biologist in a lab, or physicist out there who are only right handed, and refuse to take a look at what the left hand is doing, and when they might do so, they just glance and pay it no attention.

what im saying is, there is a problem when a doctor is not up on the latest breakthroughs in consciousness or any of the few fields of physics. why? well, hypothetically speaking, if john is working on a triple kick flip rail grind for a world record, than maybe mike should do some research first to see if he is wasting his time before he tries the same stunt that is already being done. so if their is evidence, which their very much is, that your beliefs, and your environment can play big roles in peoples personal health, than maybe it should be taken into consideration.

its incomplete science to me when one is only basing all his work off of conventional treatment, and there are breakthroughs with mind/body interactions, and breakthroughs in the physics of our reality happening all the time, and or have already happened, and still decades later, no one is putting any of the much written literature out there to test. all these things matter. to often folks think, well there physicist, that has nothing to do with my cancer patient. yes it does. physics is the groundwork for reality.

if intelligent men with phd's in the very thing you do, and maybe have been doing longer than you, are saying you should try taking some other routes with the way you're handling things, then maybe we should open our eyes.

basically, no, dont believe the hype of, oh she is fat, blame the genes, oh he loves snowboarding, its in the genes, oh he has cancer, its his genes. its the same blame game im sure you are pretty well aware of. interesting how we play the blame game for political issues and social issues, and well, hell, it applies in the world of science too. we need to take responsibility for the welfare of our own health.

you cant deny the genes role, and genes purpose, but you cant deny the other factors that can also have contributed to your disease, or your pleasures. every time i find myself going back to the old yin yang philosophy in life sometimes (random). genes, sure no problem. genes caused my obesity, um.

be weary of anyone speaking like its fact, and all is said and done. we are still very much trying to work out the complexities of the human mind and body, and unfortunately you will not get this info from cnn, you will barely get it from discovery (they will just touch the tip of the iceberg and then move on) , and you're 50/50 with the net at times (its very easy to come on the net and speak all loud and proud like a know it all, and spout off who you are, but it doesnt always mean shyt, and dont let it confuse you).

so i say, google genetic disorders and look it up. im sure wiki can help that. then, go google genetic disorder myths, or something like that, and find opposing views. then make your own conclusion.

i know a few myths, and one big one being that only crack pot spiritualist and new agers back up any type of natural remedies, whether it be through mind work, or through natural foods. in my research, i seem to come across nothing but people very qualified within their respective field, and with compelling evidence to back up their claims, and not joe the wiccan saying i can cure athletes foot with peanuts.


your environment, your beliefs, what your parents were going through, and their diet when you were in the belly, etc... there is much evidence showing how this has shaped you as a person, and how it is contributing to problems/pleasures you thought you had no control over, because it's just biology, and you cant fight that. riiiiiiiight

to deny all the information out there that has been written for decades, opposing the conventional ways of science, is stupid. you think all these people are just crazy? no, people just dont know shyt, and its easier to say, whatever, thats crap, i wont even waste my time, then to just try to test their belief. its only natural. human beings hate change, and it will be our demise. oh well

sorry, that was long, but thats just my opinion. the world will be, and has always been shaped by those willing to break the sheep chain which binds them. so its healthy to maybe do some research into opposing views, and see what you find. which you will probably find alot of people who admit they dont have all the answers, but have compelling evidence showing that, what you thought was IT, is not IT, and there are many points being missed.

its all about money and power. they have to maintain jobs for people, etc.... cant just be dropping cures left and right, and using alternative, working treatments for patients. the world economy makes mega bucks off of pain. no crime, yay, but no cops. no cops means lots of job loss. get my drift.

im sure a day will come where science starts to come together as one, and not just all these parts seeking truth.

we're stuck with what mankind has created, but the beauty is that the info is still out there, and we are free to do as we please. take advantage, not to many people can just google stuff and walk to their local borders to buy a new book so they can keep themselves more mentally and physically healthier than they thought possible.

thats it. thats just more of my opinion. dont have time, nor do i feel like posting endless links or articles debating the issue. op, if you want to chat, or whatever, hit me up on the u2u. i dont like forum posting so much anymore. the interwebz is full of ..............................................

The government introduced toxic chemicals to all of the products we use starting about 100 years ago.

Today, children are being tested and found to have bigger chemical burdens than their parents, meaning that children are inheriting the chemicals from the mother at birth.

Add to that the chemicals in every processed food and every single product that you use, and chemicals in the water supply... and then consider that the chemicals are being increased on a regular basis.

So even though the scientific community may call it 'genetic'... it's nothing more than an overload of chemicals passed on from one generation to the next in order to perpetuate the snowball effect of sickness.

No reason to hide behind "government" or "NWO" who are supposedly polluting us. We are certainly polluting in enormous amounts, why to add to it? Any product produced involves pollution produced, the more complex product - more pollution. I do not mean only air one, but toxic wastes involved in production and such. Why change perfectly working TV each few years? Because firms are pushing commercials saying you have to, not government. So WE all pollute. And waste rises through food chain. Who is on top? Why, we are.
And all these toxins we are poisoning ourself with (no dark forces needed,just market ones) are killing/mutating us, and they do it on both environmental and genetic levels.
Easiest way to fight it - do not over consume. Stuff works, no need to get an upgrade. Some big industry near by is poisoning environment - well, even lawyers can be useful sometimes. It is too easy to blame some mysterious forces ,instead of trying to do something to stop/slow it.
But.... Genetic diseases existed before industrial revolution. Ever heard about royal blue blood? This is due to Hemophilia. A single gene disease. And there are other, archaeological examples. Our cell control mechanisms are not perfect, they slip sometimes even without all the toxins.

In regards to your question, a simple Google search regarding whatever topic you want will yield papers and research on a variety of topics, try to look at school studies, as they are a little less biased then company research, no matter what a company worker will tell you. As far as why we can't cure diseases but we can make a squid glow, there is a very simple reason for this. I'll give you two examples, one i have done, one i haven't, but the research and scientific process is there its not a hoax. I will use as often as possible common language, jargon doesn't help anyone not in the field already. You have a mouse, and a glowing fish. Fish glow because they have a natural glowing agent in them, a Bioluminescence. We know the genes that cause that, and you can take them out of the fish and put them in the rat, and then it too glows. It's "easier" then curing a disease from scratch that is so close to other cells on a cellular level. There are virus's that mimics your own cells, they accept similar protein signatures and how should we make something that knows the difference, but in a genetically tiny package that can differentiate between foreign cells and your own healthy cells? It's hard to do and thats why it seems like we can do one "amazing" thing and not another, it's because we're borrowing how to do it, not making it from scratch.
The second example is something that recently happened. Mice can produce there own Vitamin C, something that very few things actually do. Humans don't if your wondering. Recently they were able to extract the vitamin C producing sequence, and put it into lettuce. Now that lettuce produces vitamin c and is infinitely healthier. They arent going to keep the lettuce, but now that they know what to look for from teh mice, they ar looking for the sequence in other plants that produce Vitamin C and then they will put that into lettuce, and potentially anything, so it's healthier. Then to bypass people who have an unnatural fear of genetic crops, they will produce a "natural" version through plant husbandry, and will sell it to third world countries that desperately need vitamin's and eventually world wide to increase vegetables potency. The point is, you have to know where the technology is coming from, you can't just cross compare different sciences. Whether i believe they have cures, or breakthroughs that aren't shared, or don't have a good publicist for, is a different topic.

Originally posted by annestacey
The government introduced toxic chemicals to all of the products we use starting about 100 years ago.

Today, children are being tested and found to have bigger chemical burdens than their parents, meaning that children are inheriting the chemicals from the mother at birth.

Add to that the chemicals in every processed food and every single product that you use, and chemicals in the water supply... and then consider that the chemicals are being increased on a regular basis.

So even though the scientific community may call it 'genetic'... it's nothing more than an overload of chemicals passed on from one generation to the next in order to perpetuate the snowball effect of sickness.

Excellent point, because my grandfather never had any problems, but he did work on the A bomb and some other secret projects... In my opinion he was exposed to radiation, and we all know radiation can alter DNA in cells... He developed diabetes in his 70's not long after working on the projects... So I think you are right, that these chemicals and all the nuclear bombs we have blown up are a major contributor to most or maybe all of our genetic diseases... I mean if what that girl is saying is true then something else has to be causing the disorders...

Take a man and a woman who have been exposed to radiation, lets say they develop a genetic disorder like diabetes... Now they have children, that DNA is going to be passed on to them and their children and so on... Does not mean it is a genetic disease, but one more than likely created by the exposure to the radiation...

Maybe what needs to be done is research into someones family history to see if any previous members of the family tree had been exposed to any chemicals or radiation etc.. When the genetic disorder originated etc..

I mean we exploded a lot of nuclear bombs above ground and under ground and all those tests created radiation... I've often thought of that when considering genetic disorders and diseases... I think what people don't realize is we've already been exposed to radiation from nuclear fall out... Although we haven't gone to war with them more than one time we have done plenty of testing and have spread mass quantities of radiation...

What do you think?

reply to post by ElectricUncleSam


I'm a bioinformatics scientist with a PhD in molecular genetics and one of the things I work in is the mapping of genes, i.e. linking a gene to a trait. This trait can be for example a polymorphism at the DNA level, which does not have a clear effect on the physical phenotype of the species, or a polymorphism that does affect the physical phenotype, for example disease.

The statements made in this video contain truth, but are being presented in a quite simplistic way, due to the limited knowledge and experience of the presenter in the field of genetics and identification and mapping of genes. I can understand why someone with no real knowledge of this field may finish watching this video with an incorrect idea of the current idea of how genomes function.

One example. She says that on average each human gene produces 10 different proteins and then continues to say "and scientists have no idea how this occurs". That is incorrect. Just Google "alternative splice variants", "post-translational modifications" to get a first glimpse into the complex way a gene can encode for different proteins.

Overall, the information presented in the video shows that the presenter has had some contact with the subject, but has never studied this field in detail, and is not, definitely not, up to date on the latest research findings. And with 'latest' I mean from the last 10-20 years. The many statements about plant or animal genomes being larger, containing more genes and being more complex than the human genome show this very clearly. Just after we finished sequencing the human genome (around 2000) scientists were very surprised that the human genome contained less genes than plants for example; it was not what we expected. Now we know that the human genome is able to do its job with less genes, less DNA, most likely because it is more efficient; it is fine tuned in much more detail. In this case it means that more is not better.

The DNA is just one level at which an organism controls its functioning. There is so much more going on after the DNA level: transcription differences, translational differences, protein modification, complex gene network interactions, gene-environment interactions.

I have personally spend five years of my career successfully identifying and linking one individual gene with a disease condition. Yes, a single nucleotide change in a gene can cause disease. On the other hand, I have also worked in so called quantitative genetics, with traits (disease for example) which are a result of a very complex interaction between multiple genes and the environmental conditions.

The following statement from the OP:

In fact science has not been able to link any disorder with a specific gene...

is not correct, and I didn't hear anything in this video that supports this statement. She did mention that no behavioral/mental disorder has ever been linked to a single gene, but have shown to be multi factorial in origin with a combination of genetics (multiple genes) and environment. But the OP has interpreted that in the above quoted way, which as I explained is not correct.

The world is not black or white, it's not day or night. Yes, there are single genes that cause disease if they have a specific polymorphism compared to a healthy individual, and yes, there are diseases which are not caused by single genes, but by a complex interaction between multiple genes and the environment. Also, there are disorders where genes have very limited effect.

[edit on 27-3-2008 by lin2007]

[edit on 27-3-2008 by lin2007]

reply to post by lin2007


Thank for your post! I have provided some links to the information you asked me to google... Also I would like to say that the statement you quoted is what me myself got from the video and what she was saying, I'm sorry if I incorrectly represented false information... That was not my intent... Like you said the girl presents the information in a way that could confuse someone like myself... And it did...

Alternative Splice Information:
Wiki
Link

What is Alternative Splicing?

The coding and non-coding fragments of the gene can be arranged in different ways. When this produces different m-RNA sequences from the same parent gene, the phenomenon is known as Alternative Splicing. The biological consequences of this process can be severe as the same gene leads to formation of different proteins which may be functional, non-functional or malfunctioning. The varied forms of the splicing events are known as splice variants. And as outlines above, AlleleID could be used for splice variant detection using microarray experiments. Link

Post-translational Modifications:
Wiki
Link
Link

reply to post by ElectricUncleSam

It's an amazingly interesting subject... I make a living researching things related to this. For someone outside the field it is not always easy to know what the current view on things is. I remember back in college when the scientists 'blamed' organisms for having useless 'junk DNA'; now many years later we start to unravel slowly the function of lots of this 'junk DNA' which turns out to be very useful after all.

We only know as much as we have accumulated so far, there is still much to learn.


[edit on 27-3-2008 by lin2007]

[edit on 27-3-2008 by lin2007]

[edit on 27-3-2008 by lin2007]

Originally posted by lin2007
reply to post by ElectricUncleSam

 

It's an amazingly interesting subject... I make a living researching things related to this. For someone outside the field it is not always easy to know what the current view on things is. I remember back in college when the scientists 'blamed' organisms for having useless 'junk DNA'; now many years later we start to unravel slowly the function of lots of this 'junk DNA' which turns out to be very useful after all.

We only know as much as we have accumulated so far, there is still much to learn.

Ya I'm sure everything is there for a reason as like in nature... Although there was a rat where they removed the "junk" and it had no effect on it... At least that's the way it seemed... Maybe certain parts of the "junk" are used to fight off disease and what not... ???

I'm currently undertaking my masters in biology, with focus on molecular og cellular aspects.

Junk DNA is termed just that because it has no known function. We usually say that a piece of DNA has a function, if it contains a gene and/or related regulatory function. If we by our knowledge, cant find one of these things, we assign it as being junk DNA.

This could mean that the DNA actually does have a function, we just doesn't have identified it, or it could mean that it is redundant - ie. it might have been important earlier on the evolutionary latter and has become useless.

There are various theories on why junk DNA hasn't been kicked out of the genome already, and personally my view on it, is that - And I quote from Wikipedia which sums it up nicely: "possible advantage of having extra DNA as a protective buffer against harmful genetic damage or mutations".

Edit: And regarding that video in the first post - What a load of crap. Much of the basic things she says are true, but she definately has no idea what the h*** she is talking about. Comparing apples and oranges, oh yeah.

[edit on 7/4/08 by Thain Esh Kelch]