While there are many neurodegenerative diseases, Huntington's disease is an inherited disorder that causes the brain's nerve cells to slowly die off. The disease is highly debilitating and causes a variety of symptoms that are difficult to manage, including unsteady gait and involuntary body movement, as well as the decline of mental faculties and even severe problems with mood. There are as many as 30,000 people in the United States with Huntington's disease and nearly 100 percent of the cases were inherited.
This is a disease that is passed from the parents to the children through a mutation in the normal Huntingtin gene that all of us have. So while all people may have the gene, it is those who inherit the mutation that will later contract Huntington's disease. Parents don't always pass the mutation onto their children, but there is a 50 percent chance that the mutation will be passed on. Every person with the mutation will develop this disease, however if the child does not inherit the mutated gene, he or she will not develop the disease and also not pass on to the generations that follow. A blood test can determine whether or not the child has inherited the mutated gene or not.
Mood swings, irritability, and depression are some of the early symptoms seen among people with Huntington disease. Chore, which is the term for abnormal or involuntary movements, is another common initial symptoms observed in persons with this disease. Concentration and focus and also blurred speech also are observed in people as the disease progresses. The symptoms observed are only those treated since there is no cure yet for this disease.
Because there is no cure discovered yet to treat the disease or to reverse it, the focus is only on the treatment of the symptoms observed. First symptoms of a person having the disease may be observed when the person is 35 but this can also be observed during the early childhood. However, most of the symptoms only occur when the person reaches the late middle age. Life expectancy after diagnosis is typically around 20 years after symptoms begin to occur.
While there is no way discovered to stop the disease yet, there are continuous clinical researches being done to understand how this disease causes so much damage to the human body and ways to combat it. The gene that causes the Huntington disease was discovered in 1993 and since the discovery; clinical research has been done to find cure and treatment for the disease. Scientific tests are done to enable for scientists to see what the defective gene will do to damage the brain and how it also affects the human body's chemistry.
It is actually the protein in the Huntingtin gene that mutates and caused the problem. When the gene mutation occurs, this protein can become abnormally long. So researchers are studying this protein carefully and are aided by services such as protein analysis and N-terminal sequencing, which is provided to them by various biotechnology companies around the world.
This is a disease that is passed from the parents to the children through a mutation in the normal Huntingtin gene that all of us have. So while all people may have the gene, it is those who inherit the mutation that will later contract Huntington's disease. Parents don't always pass the mutation onto their children, but there is a 50 percent chance that the mutation will be passed on. Every person with the mutation will develop this disease, however if the child does not inherit the mutated gene, he or she will not develop the disease and also not pass on to the generations that follow. A blood test can determine whether or not the child has inherited the mutated gene or not.
Mood swings, irritability, and depression are some of the early symptoms seen among people with Huntington disease. Chore, which is the term for abnormal or involuntary movements, is another common initial symptoms observed in persons with this disease. Concentration and focus and also blurred speech also are observed in people as the disease progresses. The symptoms observed are only those treated since there is no cure yet for this disease.
Because there is no cure discovered yet to treat the disease or to reverse it, the focus is only on the treatment of the symptoms observed. First symptoms of a person having the disease may be observed when the person is 35 but this can also be observed during the early childhood. However, most of the symptoms only occur when the person reaches the late middle age. Life expectancy after diagnosis is typically around 20 years after symptoms begin to occur.
While there is no way discovered to stop the disease yet, there are continuous clinical researches being done to understand how this disease causes so much damage to the human body and ways to combat it. The gene that causes the Huntington disease was discovered in 1993 and since the discovery; clinical research has been done to find cure and treatment for the disease. Scientific tests are done to enable for scientists to see what the defective gene will do to damage the brain and how it also affects the human body's chemistry.
It is actually the protein in the Huntingtin gene that mutates and caused the problem. When the gene mutation occurs, this protein can become abnormally long. So researchers are studying this protein carefully and are aided by services such as protein analysis and N-terminal sequencing, which is provided to them by various biotechnology companies around the world.
About the Author:
Armand Zeiders loves blogging about biomedical research. For more information about N-terminal sequencing service, or to find more information about custom recombinant protein services, please check out the Primm Biotech site now.
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