Thursday, March 9, 2017

Can a Roommate's Genes Influence Your Health?

In this article it discusses how studies have now shown that a roommate's genes can influence and individuals health. Researchers have found that the genetics of a mouse cage mate can in fact affect its health in a number of ways. It has already been known and studied that social interaction like peer pressure contribute to health and disease. However, what researchers now are finding that ones genetic makeup can impact the traits of another. This concept has been identified as social or indirect genetic effects, but is still poorly understood. An example that the article made was a individual who is a morning person in comparison to their partner who is a night owl. The morning person could find themselves staying up later with their partner therefore inclining the morning person to stay up later resulting from an illness of lack of sleep.
I find this article interesting because I can see how interactions with others can influence behaviors which in turn can influence genes. When reading this article I thought of partners when together can influence weight gain. Myself personally have experienced and can see how this would influence my genetic make up.

3 comments:

  1. Before reading this article i never thought that a mates genetic makeup can affect the traits of another. I like the sleep example as i have experienced that before and never truly stopped to think about it.

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  2. I used this article as one of my blog posts and I can definitely agree that the people you live with affect your genes. I noticed a difference in myself thinking about the roommates I live with this semester and how my sleep patterns were drastically affected as well as influencing weight gain.

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  3. I find this article interesting because I can see the influences happen first handily. My roommate is a night owl. She stays up late watching her TV shows while I am in bed by 9:30. Just a couple weeks ago she started falling asleep around the same time as me. She even said that she was turning into me. I believe living with another person influences daily routines. More studies have to be done concerning the fact of how ones genetic make-up is altered due to living with a roommate. I do believe though that this could be true even though scientists do not fully understand it yet.

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