Transcripts

May 11, 2004:
What's In Your Genes II
Interview with Philip Reilly author of Is It In Your Genes?

Philip Reilly:
After all, we know that heavy smoking causes lung cancer, but only 10% of heavy smokers get lung cancer. Why is that?

Genetic expert Dr. Philip Reilly, author of the book Is It In Your Genes?...

It maybe that some people, many people have genes that protect somewhat against that.

You've probably heard it said that diseases run in families, but sometimes skip a generation.

There is a concept in genetics called penetrance, by that term is meant the likelihood that if you have a gene that predisposes to something, that you will actually develop the disease. Most diseases, like heart disease, or colon cancer have genes, if you will, gene products, interacting with the environment. So even if you were born with an increased risk because of the gene variant if you don't get the environmental trigger, or exposures, you may not ever have colon cancer, but your child could get the same gene from you, grow-up, be exposed to the environmental triggers and he could get cancer. So in fact, diseases can skip generations, genes don't, but diseases can.

And although it's impossible to know how long you'll live...

Although it's not a great predictor, the best predictor of how long you'll live is how long your parents lived.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net, I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.