Headline September 13, 2018/ '' ' DEADLY -DNA-CLUED- DISEASES ' ''

'' ' DEADLY -DNA-CLUED- DISEASES ' ''

SCIENTISTS HAVE a powerful new tool to calculate a person's inherited risks for heart disease, breast cancer and three other very serious conditions.

By surveying changes in DNA at 6.6 million places in the human genome, investigator's at Broad Institute and Harvard University, both in Cambridge, Mass., were able-

To identify many more people at risk than do the usual genetic tests, which take into account very few genes.

Of 100 heart attack patients, for example, the standard methods will identify two who have a single genetic mutation that places them at increased risk. But the new tool will find 20 of them, the scientists reported last week in the journal Nature Genetics.

The researchers are building a website that will allow anyone to upload genetic data from a company like 23andMe or Ancestry.com.

Users will risk scores for heart disease, breast cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, chronic inflammatory bowel disease and arterial fibrillation.

*People will not be charged for their scores*.

A risk score, including obtaining the genetic data, should cost less than $100, said Dr. Daniel Rader, a professor of molecular medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr.Rader who was not involved with the study, said Harvard university would soon be offering such a test to patients to assess their risk for heart disease. For now, the university will not charge for it.

Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, senior author of the new paper and director of the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, said his team had validated the heart risk calculations in multiple populations.

But DNA is not destiny, Dr. Kathiresan stressed.

A healthy lifestyle and cholesterol-lowering medications can substantially reduce risk of heart attack, even in those who have inherited a genetic predisposition.

The new tool also can find people at the low end of the risk range for the five diseases.

This should prove useful to certain patients : for example. a woman who is trying to decide when she should start having regular mammograms, or a -

40- year - old man with a slightly high cholesterol level who wants to know if he should take a statin.

Still, there are concerns about how the genetic test will be used.

'' It carries great hope, but also comes with a lot of questions,'' said Dr. David J. Maron, director of  preventive cardiology at Stanford University.

''Who should get tested? How should the results be provided? Physicians are are not generally well  trained to provide genetic test results.''

But medical experts said this sort risk assessment is the wave of the future:

''I'm not sure we can stop it,'' said Dr. John Mandrola, a cardiac electro - physiologist at Baptist  Health in Louisville, Ky.

The Honor and Serving of the latest Operational Research on Deadly Diseases hidden in the DNA continues. The World Students Society thanks author and researcher Gina Kolata.

With respectful dedication to the Research Scientists, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all ''register'' on The World Students Society : www.wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Students & Diseases '''

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