According to a major report, scientists
now have the technology to start a new era in medicine by precisely matching
drugs to people's genetic code. This field of matching drugs to a person’s DNA
is known as pharmacogenomics.
Drugs are complex substances and are often ineffective or
become deadly because of subtle differences in a person’s body function. However,
The British Pharmacological Society and the Royal College of Physicians say a
genetic test, which may be available as early as next year, can predict how
well drugs work with your body.
There have been real life cases in which drugs taken for one
medical issue have caused severe damage and pain in other areas of the body. Professor
Mark Caulfield explains that “99.5% of us have at least one change in our
genome that, if we come across the wrong medicine, it will either not work or
it will actually cause harm” (Gallagher, 2022).
Scientists have looked at the 100 most prescribed drugs in
the UK and say that this genetic testing guide is ready for 40 of them. The
test would cost around £100 and could be done using either a sample of blood or
saliva.
I think that the 'one drug and one dose fits all' approach
is going to become an outdated standard in the healthcare industry. The
effectiveness and safety of medicines should be focused on each individual patient
rather than as a generalized approach.
Tagged here
is a related article providing additional information on this topic.
This is a really interesting concept and I hope that this can continue further. I am curious to see how this would work because there are thousands of drugs, and only 40 would barely skim the surface with the thousands of diseases that are out there. Taking a more individualized approach would help avoid drug allergies as well as target the person giving them the best options for their health. I have taken medications that have not worked for me and it would be great to see if there was a genetic reasoning as to why that occurred.
ReplyDelete