The Best Medications For Your Genes

blackbearnh writes "Until recently, physicians prescribed drugs to patients with dosages based only on weight, and with no idea if the drug would be effective for that particular person. But as this article on Forbes.com highlights, the same advances in genomics that are letting people know about their likelihood of getting certain diseases can also let doctors know what drugs, and what dosages, will be likely to do the most good. 'Tamoxifen, the much-heralded cancer-fighting drug, has been shown to have little benefit for 7% to 10% of patients taking it. In the past, we would have just said that it works 90% of the time. But now, with our new genomic knowledge under our belt, we can say that it works nearly 100% of the time for people with the 'right' version of the CYP2D6 gene, and 0% of the time for people with the 'wrong' version, who make up roughly 7% to 10% of the population.'"

Comments

next up..

[blool]

getting denied health insurance for having bad genes

Re:next up..

[cjfs]

And are you confident, given the current level of lobbying, that the U.S. government won't pass the "Comprehensive, Affordable, Reliable, Effective Health Act"? I mean who would vote against the C.A.R.E health act that's "designed to lower health premiums for hard working American families"?

You might be surprised how much more power the industry will gain if public options fail.

Re:Tailoring Medicine to Genes: What took so long?

[thefirelane]

The problem is, you are, like soooo many before you, confusing significant cultural influence with some sort of inborn genetic trait: >so far none have done very well in the 100m sprinting event So you are saying that there is some "karate gene" then? What gene makes Americans poor at soccer while great at Basketball? The point is, certain cultures value certain sports more than others, and thus those sports attract the pool of athletes from a certain country. >And great influence in other fields such as finance. You realize that Jews were basically *forced* to be bankers for a large part of history right? Tax and interest collection as seen as Taboo for Christians, so they made the jews do it. Same thing with science: if you can get run out of town at a moments notice, you tend to value learning and intelligence, as those are things that pack easily.