Contents:
- Medical Video: How are pathogens spread and controlled | Biology for All | FuseSchool
- How can genetic diseases occur in the body?
- How can a congenital disease be passed on to posterity?
- Hereditary diseases can jump over a generation
- Could I avoid congenital diseases in my family?
Medical Video: How are pathogens spread and controlled | Biology for All | FuseSchool
You may have often seen real examples of people around you, that talent can be reduced from parent to child. Even in some cases, hereditary diseases can also skip a generation. So it's precisely the grandson who has the same illness as his grandparents.
However, is someone certain to have a disease that is suffered by parents or grandparents? Why can certain diseases jump from grandparents directly to grandchildren, not their own children? Here's the explanation.
How can genetic diseases occur in the body?
Before explaining how your children and grandchildren might later get your own inherited disease, first understand how genetic diseases can form in the human body.
In contrast to influenza or dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), genetic diseases are not solely caused by bacterial or viral infections from the outside. The reason is damage to the genes in your body.
Genetic damage occurs when the body is exposed to free radicals and chemicals which then change your genetic code. In addition, gene damage can also occur if you experience severe stress.
Because there are genes that are damaged, the cells in your body cannot function normally. This is what causes the emergence of disease. Starting from quite common genetic diseases such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and depression to rare genetic diseases such as Down syndrome and color blindness.
How can a congenital disease be passed on to posterity?
The genes in your body are formed from a combination of father's genes and maternal genes. Later, the dominant genes will determine your physical and psychological condition. Suppose your father likes to smoke since you were not born. Toxins and chemicals from cigarettes cause damage to father's genes. This damage eventually triggers lung cancer.
The father's damaged gene will be carried away by sperm cells. If this gene is strong enough and dominant, this gene will remain alive in the fetus that is formed from the meeting of sperm cells and egg cells. So, when you are born, you have inherited lung cancer talent from your father's gene.
The risk of lung cancer becomes even greater if you live a lifestyle that can trigger this disease. Suppose you are exposed to cigarette smoke from your father since childhood or you smoke yourself.
Hereditary diseases can jump over a generation
Don't get me wrong, hereditary disease is not only inherited by children, but by grandchildren or even your great grandchildren later. As an illustration, your grandfather has asthma. However, your mother apparently did not inherit this disease from grandfather. It is precisely you who are the grandchildren who eventually get asthma. This means that the disease skips the second generation, your mother, and directly to the third generation, namely yourself.
How could this happen? Simply put, your mother's body is only a "host" for the genes that cause asthma. This gene only hangs on the mother's body, not attacking in the form of illness. Either because this gene is not dominant in the mother's body or because of other factors such as a healthy lifestyle.
However, the genes that cause asthma do not just disappear. Your father may have a similar gene. As a result, you get a combination of genes that cause asthma from your father and mother. These genes turn out to be dominant in your body so you also get congenital asthma.
In the end, genes really can't jump generation. Genes will continue to be passed down through generations. It is the disease that may jump a generation.
Could I avoid congenital diseases in my family?
Until now there is no science that can stop the development of hereditary diseases in a person's body. However, you still have the opportunity to delay or prevent the development of hereditary diseases.
The trick is to avoid the trigger of the disease (risk factor). For example by living a healthy lifestyle and diet as early as possible.
If you already know there is a history of certain diseases in the family, be aware of the symptoms and immediately see a doctor if there are complaints. The sooner you detect a hereditary disease, the more likely you are to treat or control the disease.
