Saturday, March 5, 2011

A gene discovered


Why does the news media not care? This is huge! They found a gene that may have something to do with bipolar disorder:

"Our results provide strong evidence that genetic variation in the gene NCAN is a common risk factor for bipolar disorder," concludes Dr. Cichon. "Further work is needed now to learn more about the biological processes that NCAN is involved in and how NCAN variants disturb neuronal processes in patients with bipolar disorder."

There's your genetic testing and all sorts of moral questions right there. Should we test for it? What does it mean? Does it effect treatments? Can they do specifically tailored treatments for the gene? If you present with symptoms and yet don't have the gene can you be diagnosed bipolar? If not, what are you?

So many questions, and they'll never be satisfactory answers, methinks.

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