Can Your Health Care be Personalized by Your Own DNA?

Can Your Health Care Be Personalized by Your Own DNA?

By Christina Hessel

I am ecstatic to report that according to Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, ‘In the coming years, new gene-based knowledge, combined with the advent of health information technology, can make possible a new kind of medical care for Americans: Personalized Health Care. Of course, health care professionals have always aimed at making medical care as individualized as possible. But in truth, our ability to deliver the right care for each person has been limited.'

Michael Leavitt goes on to say, ‘In the past, we have had only partial understanding of human biology at the molecular and genetic levels, where each of us is biologically unique. Our understanding of each person's particular susceptibility to diseases, as well as his or her individual responses to therapies, has been limited. Physicians diagnose and treat on the basis of symptoms that can be seen and felt. But they have not had access to the underlying biological processes, unique to each of us, that start with the "instructions" in our DNA or genes.

Despite growing complexity in health care, there is limited online support at the bedside to help health care professionals deliver the best standard of care for each patient. In addition, while controlled clinical trials remain the staple of progress in biomedical science, the additional wealth of information that might be reaped from millions of encounters in day-to-day medical practice remains untapped.

This is not to say that the progress made by American medicine has been anything but remarkable. But the opportunities that present themselves today hold the possibility of a transformation over the coming years and decades that is even more far-reaching. It involves not only breakthroughs in scientific knowledge but, equally important, the application of this knowledge on a patient-by-patient basis. We can see the possibility of health care that is increasingly calibrated to each patient and personally effective for each individual.

One part of the foundation for such a change is our rapidly growing understanding of the human genome and the processes it directs. We envision health care that could:

predict our individual susceptibility to disease, based on genetic and other factors; provide more useful and person-specific tools for preventing disease, based on that knowledge of individual susceptibility; detect the onset of disease at the earliest moments, based on newly discovered chemical markers that arise from changes at the molecular level; preempt the progression of disease, as a result of early detection; and target medicines and dosages more precisely and safely to each patient, on the basis of genetic and other personal factors in individual response to drugs. Another part of the foundation for personalized health care is the potential for health information technology to help develop new knowledge and put it to effective use. When health information exists in electronic form, capable of being shared securely, it can:

make the patient's complete health information available when and where needed;

provide support to clinicians when they need it, to help them give patients the best standard of care, including information based on individual genetic and molecular factors;

through secure networks, bring together masses of data from day-to-day medical practice to accelerate our understanding of which treatments work best, and to monitor for safety problems in real time; and

use the medical evidence developed from such networks to understand differences in patients' response to drugs and other therapies, learning who benefits from specific treatments, so that therapies can be targeted on a more individualized basis.

Personalized nutrition and health care is information-based health care. It is health care that works better for each patient, based partly on scientific information that is new and partly on technology to make complex information useful. Whether it involves new biomedical knowledge, data networks for developing that knowledge, or computer supports to manage that knowledge, personalized health care is about a transformed role for information in health care.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) recognizes the work that lies ahead to achieve personalized health care. From this early stage, we can outline the opportunity. We can roughly see the building plan and identify some of the key elements and pathways that must be traversed. We can recognize the importance of collaboration. We can identify broad prerequisites for personalized health care.

More broadly, we can see the imperative for collaboration across the private and public sectors and across many disciplines and stakeholders.

Finally, we must remember that the true foundation of this progress is public trust. It is not enough merely to develop the knowledge and information that will make personalized health care possible. In addition to developing the information, we must use it correctly.

One of my priorities as HHS Secretary is to help build a strong foundation for personalized health care. That means coordinating work across agencies as well as addressing crosscutting issues, to ensure that new information and capabilities will be used appropriately.

We cannot entirely foresee how different health care may be in the coming decades. It seems inevitable that there will be a significant period of disruption and learning as new capabilities are developed and adopted. Nonetheless, it is incumbent on us to take steps now, even as basic knowledge and technologies are being developed, to anticipate and enable that future. The goal of the health care professional remains to deliver the right care to the right patient at the right time, and that is what personalized health care is about.

Personalized health care means knowing what works, knowing why it works, knowing who it works for, and applying that knowledge.

These goals may sound elementary, but a generation of effort lies before us in achieving them - perhaps one of the most complex science-based endeavors in our history. We approach it with high hopes and humility.'

The previous information from Michael Leavitt is so encouraging To think that the wave of the future is for health care to be directed at your own genetic makeup. We already can assess our own DNA to look for variations (SNPs - pronounced snips) in 12 key genes that are very important in your body's overall health: specifically your genetic propensity of: oxidative stress, environmental challenges; cardiovascular health; detoxification; immune health; neurological health; pulmonary health, eye/vision health and bone health.

Small variation in DNA, call SNPs (Single nucleotide polymorphisms) account for all human genetic differences - including how efficient we are at key biological processes. The GeneLink scientific and medical advisory board has developed test for 12 different SNPs that are known to have an impact on the functioning of the body and that may lead to diminished health and wellness.

You can now have a custom-created product just for you using the highest quality ingredients available. The ingredients are carefully selected and blended based on your person GeneLink Healthy Aging DNA Assessment.

More about the author:

Christina has worked in the Health Care Industry for over 25 years with a special interest in Health and Nutrition. She has been married to Todd for 27 years. Together they have raised 3 children and are the proud grandparents of 2.

You can learn about DNA testing at: http://www.mygenewize.com/travelingnani