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The Genetics of Happiness
Hugh Pickens writes "Studies comparing identical twins with non-identical twins have helped to establish the heritability of many aspects of behavior. Recent work suggests that about one third of the variation in people's happiness is heritable. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve has taken the study a step further, picking a popular suspect — the gene that encodes the serotonin-transporter protein, a molecule that shuffles a brain messenger called serotonin through cell membranes — and examined how variants of the 5-HTT gene affect levels of happiness. The serotonin-transporter gene comes in two functional variants—long and short and people have two versions (known as alleles) of each gene, one from each parent. After examining genetic data from more than 2,500 participants in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, De Neve found that people with one long allele were 8% more likely than those with none to describe themselves as very satisfied with life and those with two long alleles were 17% more likely of describing themselves as very satisfied. Interestingly enough, there is a notable variation across races with Asian Americans in the sample having on average 0.69 long genes, white Americans with 1.12, and black Americans with 1.47. 'It has long been suspected that this gene plays a role in mental health but this is the first study to show that it is instrumental in shaping our individual happiness levels (PDF),' writes De Neve. 'This finding helps to explain why we each have a unique baseline level of happiness and why some people tend to be naturally happier than others, and that's in no small part due to our individual genetic make-up.'"
So the summary implies that black people are expected to be happier. Is that what is observed in the wild?
We wouldn't have a republican party
You mean prozac? Allthough it doesn't produce any additional serotonin, just inhibits it's reuptake into the presynaptic cell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI
Likely depends on whether the effect is continuous, or whether the major difference is made relatively early in development, by pushing the system onto a different trajectory than it otherwise would have followed.
We already have scads of SSRIs that tweak the seretonin system in what is supposed to be a positive direction. Those, as a class, manage to have clinically significant effects in a reasonable percentage of people with major depression; but (despite broad, fairly easy, availability) have attracted pretty much zero interest as recreational mood-enhancers among the population at large.
I assume that there will be some research interest in the long-variant transporter protein as a successor to, or supplement to, SSRIs; and it might end up being a hit in the antidepressant market(if it turns out that regulating membrane transport is an important part of, or better than, futzing with extracellular concentration); but it is hard to imagine it taking the world of either cheap, widely available, socially lubricating, soft drugs(booze, pot) or potentially quite hazardous; but really-grabs-you-right-by-the-pleasure-center hard drugs(amphetamines, coke, etc.) by storm.
Sounds like you didn't understand. He wasn't talking about inserting the alleles into cells after the fact (something which isn't attainable with current technology, although some retroviruses show promise), but rather synthesizing the compounds which those cells with the aforementioned alleles would be producing to mimic the effect without the genetic machinery. That would in fact have to be a regular and recurring treatment, though I'm not sure that it would be all that different from existing treatments relating to seratonin production and management.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Given the observed sensitivity, especially but not exclusively neonatal, to environmental influences, and the whole field of epigenetic study, it is neither obvious, nor obviously true, that our genetic make-up determines who we are.
Thanks to twin studies and other convenient test populations, we've been able to determine that some things are extremely heritable; but that others are surprisingly minimally so. There are even a number of factors(mostly metabolic and neurological stuff that is laid down in utero) where the developing embryo takes enough chemical cues from mommy that a practically Lamarkian pattern of 'inheritance' is seen.
They found a Hindu gene? Can you cite? And how close are they to fiinding the pentecostal gene yet?
2 points.
First - Yes - it has been obsered in the wild. That was the point of the study.
Second - and this is imporant - they were testing "Black Americans". African gene are the most heterogeneous - which is what one would expect from the cradle of mankind. "Black Americans" genes are much more homogeneous since they were drawn from a limited pool. So while we can say this is true for Black Americans but it does not say anything about Africans in general.
Even if we assume that all drug developers are a cartel(rather than a set of entities competing with one another to produce blockbuster drugs; but in agreement that drugs really ought to be expensive), developing a one-time treatment makes total sense if it is sufficiently expensive vs. a maintenance drug.
The net present value of a patient on a maintenance drug is lowered by the fact that future sales to them are time discounted($50 today is better than a promise of $50 a year from now, though exact discount rates vary) and discounted due to uncertainty(the patient could die, recover, become too poor to remain a customer, switch drugs, etc. so, at a population level, the probability that a customer today implies a payout at a given point in the future becomes lower as time goes on). For those reasons, the net present value is substantially lower than $prescription profit/month*months of patient life.
There are also the transaction costs: it isn't free to have the doctor write the script every month or three, and to have the pharmacy stock the stuff and hand it out, and for the customer to drive over and pick it up, and remember to take it every day. All those costs either bite into the producer's profit, or the consumer's willingness to pay.
If you have a one-time cure, on the other hand, its net present value, per patient, is equal to the profit at which you sell it. No discounted future payments, no future uncertainty, cash-in-hand. Plus, the customer is willing to pay more because there is no more daily pill, no more pharmacy pickups, no more doctor to write the script every so often, no feeling like shit if you mess up the logistics and miss a dose.
Consider, by way of analogy, the way that laser eye surgery was not actually crushed by the Glasses Industrial Complex. It is a comparatively 'premium' priced product, compared to a basic pair of glasses every so often(based on breakage or prescription change) for life; but it offers good immediate-cash-in-hand profits for the producer and is valued by consumers for its great longterm convenience.
Consider, by way of analogy, the way that laser eye surgery was not actually crushed by the Glasses Industrial Complex. It is a comparatively 'premium' priced product, compared to a basic pair of glasses every so often(based on breakage or prescription change) for life; but it offers good immediate-cash-in-hand profits for the producer and is valued by consumers for its great longterm convenience.
Alcon, a major manufacturer of laser eye surgery machines and eyedrops, loses money on the machines, they make it all in the eyedrops.
That's the sort of tosh that sounds very poetic; but is really nonsense.
Moods don't "mean" things: they are physiological states, not symbols. Further, "happy" isn't something you infer by playing compare-and-contrast, it's the immediate introspective impression of a certain state(just as certain sensations on the skin are pleasant per se, not by contrast to being on fire.)
Our present knowledge of psycho-pharmacology and neurology is blunt enough that shooting for permanent happiness is not a particularly good move; but that's a technological problem, not some sort of issue in epistemology.
Not that I put much store in such things, but studies and surveys show your statement is totally backwards--republicans (or, more specifically, conservatives) tend to be happier than democrats (liberals):
http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/04/23/conservatives-are-happier-than-liberals-discuss/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=BABCDEA5-D180-499B-094168CBE5442468
On a purely anecdotal level, I would say that I would categorize more of my conservative friends as "happy people" than I would my liberal friends. There are of course dozens of exceptions, and, like I said, I don't put much store in this stuff anyway (especially non-scientific anecdotal).