Genetic Code May Not Necessarily Predict Most Diseases

Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and colleagues gathered medical data from 53,666 twin pairs from around the world. The researchers did not decipher any of the twins' genomes but used the medical data to develop a mathematical formula to predict the minimum and maximum risk of getting 24 different diseases, including several cancers, heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. For all but four diseases, the genetic data would fail to determine who is likely to contract the condition in most cases.