Understanding Pharmacogenetics

Pharmacogenetics is another emergence in Science which examines the gene types and

gene variations to ascertain the probability of adverse reactions or positive impact to drug treatments or pharmaceutical products. Although it is closely studied with another branch of science, pharmacogenomics, which studies the gene reactions to certain drugs, and thus, develop medicines based on one's genetic makeup, genetics should not be confused with genomics.

Nevertheless, while these areas of science are distinct, both have produced excitement and raised hopes for more effective and less risky drug treatments. For many years now, it is a common scenario that a patient, while being treated with his or her illness, has to go through the dangerous and toiling stage of trial and error in pursuit of finding the right medicine-the one that fights the disease at the best level.

The trial and error stage is very critical because the patient is exposed to several types of anti-biotic which can have serious adverse reactions to the one taking them, which could in turn, cause complications. In America, majority of the cause of death and hospitalization is serious adverse reactions. But what can the physicians do when they lack the right tool to determine which formula of medicine can draw the best results from a certain patient?

For example, a patient who suffers from Breast Cancer may have to try taking several types of anti-biotic to combat the cancer-stricken cells, before the physician can realize which among them best fit the patient. At times, the trial and error phase can last for many months, which are already long for the medicines to draw out adverse reactions from the body.

Most of the time, the complications arising from adverse reactions can be the primary cause of death of a patient, and not the Breast cancer itself. Or, a certain individual who suffers from kidney stones has finally been cured of them, but has developed infection of the bladder or liver as the side effect of the anti-biotic taken to treat the kidney stones.

Many of the variety of medicines that treats one disease can have undesirable side effects to some people. This is because each individual is unique when it comes to DNA. The uniqueness of one's DNA can have a great impact in terms of medicines, nutrition and even health supplements taken. Scientists have long discovered that there is no one size fits all medicines, health supplements and even nutrition. What can be good to one person may be bad to another. And this applies to medicines, health supplements and nutrition.

The role of pharmacogenetics is to help scientists understand the role of gene variations as far as having reactions-be it positive or negative-from a particular patient is concerned. Scientists are clinging to the hope that the said gene variations can be the key to accurately predicting the probability of desirable, undesirable and no response of specific medications. Hence, these variations can be evaluated to help scientists determine which medicines should be described to patients based on their genetic makeup.

by: Charles Godbout

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