GOOD HEALTH MAGAZINE : MEDICINE : How’s Your Genetic IQ?
True or false? The following have been found to have genetic components.
1. Huntington’s disease.
2. Chronic simple glaucoma.
3. Hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol levels, with propensity to heart disease).
4. Cystic Fibrosis.
5. Hodgkin’s disease.
6. Sickle-cell disease.
7. Tay-Sachs disease.
8. Color blindness.
9. Hemophilia.
10. Breast cancer.
11. Colon cancer.
12. Non-insulin-dependent diabetes.
13. Obesity.
14. Gonorrhea.
15. Marfan’s Syndrome.
16. Alcoholism.
17. Alzheimer’s disease.
18. Manic-depressive disease.
19. Lung cancer.
20. Legionnaire’s disease.
ANSWERS
1. True. This is an autosomal dominant disorder; if you have one parent with this faulty gene, you have a 50% chance of inheriting it.
2. True.
3. True.
4. True. (CF is an autosomal recessive disorder. If both parents carry the harmful gene, the child who receives the defective gene from both parents may have a significant birth defect.)
5. False.
6. True. This is a disorder that affects mainly blacks.
7. True. This is a disorder that affects mainly people of Eastern European Jewish heritage.
8. True. This is an X-linked (or sex-linked) disorder passed from a mother to her sons. Each son has a 50% risk of inheriting the gene. Each daughter has an equal chance of being a carrier as her mother was but is usually unaffected.
9. True. This is an X-linked disorder.
10. True. This tends to run in families.
11. True.
12. False.
13. True. Recent research suggests that our genes play a great part in obesity.
14. False.
15. True. An autosomal dominant disorder characterized by elongation of bones.
16. True. Evidence for genetic predisposition to alcoholism continues to grow. However, many researchers believe it results from the interaction of heredity and environment.
17. True. However, research indicates only 10% of cases are clearly inherited.
18. True.
19. True. A genetic origin of small-cell lung cancer, a particularly deadly form that only recently has been identified.
20. False.
You get an excellent score if you answered 15 or more questions correctly; good if you answered 12 to 14; fair if you got 8-11; poor if you answered fewer than 8.
