Transcripts

May 10, 2004:
What's In Your Genes
Interview with Philip Reilly author of Is It In Your Genes?

Philip Reilly:
Each of us is born with about 2 sets of about 25 to 30,000 genes and they program us from everything from fetal development, to growth in childhood, and the decent into old age. Genes are the blueprint, if you will, of our body.

Genetic expert Dr. Philip Reilly, author of the book Is It In Your Genes?, says you get your genes from your parents, which is why we say something like, "heart disease can be genetic or past down from generation to generation", but not always.

In general, the younger and more severely affected an individual, the more likely the genes are playing a bigger role. Let me give you a good example, if somebody dies at 80 of a heart attack, it's far less likely that genes played a big role, than if he died at 45 or 50 of a heart attack. That's true for heart disease, it's true for cancer, it's true for a lot of things.

So it's important to know and pay attention to what diseases run in your family.

Okay, let's take breast cancer for a moment, breast cancer is so common; so many families have one member with a history of breast cancer within their extended family. But if you're in a family where there are three or four women who have had breast cancer, particularly if it's before age 60, that suggest an increased genetic risk.

Tomorrow what's the best way to predict how long you'll live. I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.