Biochemistry: Kennedy's disease

Kennedy's disease

Posted on 12/24/2008 08:08:00 PM comments (8)

Chew Chor Meng was diagnose with Kennedy's disease and I think most people know about this news. This disease causes muscle wasting and it means that he is going to have problem with motoring skills, weak muscle, muscle cramp and might lead to extreme disability. Kennedy's disease usually affect the boys but not the girls but girls are mostly the carrier.

Many people know that it is a disease but where does this disease come from? Why no cure? Our DNA is a blueprint of codes. In lay man terms, it is similar to computer operating system such as Window XP and Window Vista. However, human codes are more complicated, it is a book that tell our body how to produce protein, enzyme and antibodies or simply everything in the cells. DNA is made up of A, T, C and G, computer is made up of 0 and 1 while English is made up of A to Z.

From generation to generation, human genes will make error and when this error is passed down to another generation, they also get the error genes too. Gene errors are known as mutation and nobody can ever treat a mutated gene easily. There is a way but far to research; by planting a modified virus that is able to perform lysogenic cycle inside human body, it is able to remove the mutated gene with a new gene containing the right code. However, our body might recognise a good virus as a parasite so our immune system produces more antibodies to block the active site and thus grant it inactive. Therefore we have to find a way to inhibit these antibodies when undergoing this treatment.

Whether it is HIV, Cancer or Genes mutation, it can definitely be cured. HIV cannot be cured because people have not found out how to solve the complicated problem due to frequent mutation of the HIV genes. When HIV virus grow into its daughter virus, the daughter virus is somewhat different from the parent virus and this make it hard to specify one type of vaccine or antibody for the virus.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are often used to treat cancer but they have a lot of side effects. Scientist are now finding out on the antibodies that can recognise cancer cell and destroy it. HIV virus perhaps can be cured using molecular imprinting which is still at research by scientist. One virus that is particularly dangerous is Polio and this virus has been executed a few years back, it does not exist anymore.

Cancer can be prevented by reducing exposure to radiation, eat antioxidant such as Lipoic acid. Also eat more fruit as it contains many type of vitamins and anti-oxidant. At old age, human cells tend to have lesser efficiency repairing DNA, thus mutation is likely to be high.

Cancers are your cells that kill you. Bacteria infection is foreign living things that infect your body while virus is only a shell containing DNA, it is not a living thing yet it is able to kill you because it knows how to hack your cells.