thatsa spicey meatball

cool!

My Grandma just managed to squeeze into last year's stroke victims.

Still no cure for meatballs?

/got nuthin

That's all fine and dandy that they keep discovering these things, but are there currently any actual genetic treatments out there for adults?

Will someone please think of the meatballs!

all your meatballs are belong to us!!

In other news, once your health insurance company finds out you carry said gene, YOU'RE FARKED.

your heart doesn't want steak

oh, it warms the cockles of my atherosclerotic heart to see that the world will still have room for miracle elixirs and quackery in the guise of science. it's not that i don't believe that what these dedicated researchers are saying. it's that i believe that someone will turn at least a few million bucks off it without actually doing a damn thing to extend anyone's life.

that's why i smoke. i don't want those last ten years. maybe i'll feel differently when i'm old and i don't breathe well. or maybe i'll just face the end with a nic in my lips, emphysema in my lungs, and a tune in my heart. or maybe i have the gene and i'm doomed anyway. it's a farking crapshoot anyway, yo.

Without going into the boring details, this finding may explain why low-dose (children size) aspirin every day helps prevent heart attacks and strokes in some people.

What about childrens sized meatballs?

and they want to get rid of this gene!!??? Crazy

14 comments.... nice

Glad they found it, but you can't just take out bad things without causing ripples


/butterly effect

Gene linked to heart disease? Oh please. Try your diet and lifestyle fatass meatboy.

Time to develop a cure, based on this information - ten years.

Time to add DNA testing to pre-insurance medical exams - 10 milliseconds.

"Yes, I know you work out, avoid fatty foods, take regular exercise and don't smoke, but according to this genetic analysis, we have to double your premium".

I want to relate this to Gattaca but i can't think of anything relevant. Uh... Uma Thurman?

i didn't read the article (as i'm running late) . . .

but to answer lemina's question -

finding a physical gene MAP (where the actual length of the gene is isolated, as opposed to having a general idea of its position) is indeed an important first step to manipulating its effects. it opens the door for such possibilities of treatments - but these news reports are always full of false hope. an understanding of the gene expression is probably 10 years away, and a "cure" (or therapy) is well over 15 years off, at least.

why? because the next step is transferring the genes into manipulated animal models - mainly mice. the most effective method of this is through insertion of the genes into embryo stem cells (when the mouse is literally hours old after conception). the growing mouse will randomly take up the isolated gene/DNA and with a certain probability the HUMAN homologous gene can be expressed, or eventually removed through specific breeding (called "knockout mice" - which are extremely valuable in understanding the specific traits that gene provides).

but those mice are only MODELS, and the study then has to be applied to humans. it'd be a little different if we could tinker with human embryos and watch their growth (at least until a few weeks before birth and then euthenizing them). but apparently the number #1 killer in the united states isn't THAT important.

It's called the "shut your farking mouth and loose some freakin' weight" gene.

i think Michael Jackson likes children sized meatballs!!

/all aboard the bullet train to hell!!

Sounds like ample motivation for the "McDonalds Made Me Fat" crowd.

Then again, probably not. . .