'IMAX Movie of Body' Allows Stanford Geneticist To Stop Diabetes In Its Tracks 137
sciencehabit writes "Michael Snyder has taken 'know thyself' to the next level. Over a 14-month period, the molecular geneticist analyzed his blood 20 different times to pluck out a wide variety of biochemical data depicting the status of his body's immune system, metabolism, and gene activity. In yesterday's issue of Cell (abstract), Snyder and a team of 40 other researchers present the results of this extraordinarily detailed look at his body, which they call an integrative personal omics profile (iPOP) because it combines cutting-edge scientific fields such as genomics (study of one's DNA), metabolomics (study of metabolism), and proteomics (study of proteins). Instead of seeing a snapshot of the body taken during the typical visit to a doctor's office, iPOP effectively offers an IMAX movie, which in Snyder's case had the added drama of charting his response to two viral infections and the emergence of type 2 diabetes."
Terrible Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot headlines are getting pathetically lame. This kind of twisted deceptive word play is what I expect when I stand in line at the grocery store. Would it have been stooping so low to integrity to post
'IMAX Movie of Body' Allows Stanford Geneticist To See Type 2 Diabetes Progress Like Never Before
?
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
Except starting in 2014, if all goes well, it will be illegal for them to deny you coverage based on a pre-existing condition. There will also be no annual cap on your doctor visits, etc because they can no longer cap that, either.
AKA HMOs can't say, "Oh, you're only allowed 3 office visits per quarter, and if you go above such and such amount, we cut off you off for the rest of the year."
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, Michael Snyder [stanford.edu] doesn't look like the extreme cheeseburger eating type. A Google search for him [stanford.edu] shows some full body shots. From the article, it sounds like they have evidence of a viral + genetic cause for type 2 diabetes.
Re:A little late on this article... (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I know this comment will be subsequently down moderated for saying this. So be it.
Not really.
Whenever people on slashdot say their comment will be modded down for being unpopular opinion, it usually ends up being modded up due to the kneejerk reaction of people to not seem biased.
I know I'll be modded down for saying this, but it has to be said.
Enjoy your catch-22.
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Misleading (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a good way for people to manage risk. It's a terrible way for a company trying to make the largest possible profit to manage risk. You know what? Some of my best friends are people. None of them are companies. Fuck companies, if they make a 0.01% profit, it's more than they "deserve". If those individuals that are part of the company want to make more money than any fifty people need for an entire lifetime, they're free to pursue some area of business where my friends don't die so they can have a yacht. The medical insurance industry turning off predators and attracting more altruistic people would be a fantastic thing.
Re:Eh, Type 2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Causality is tricky, but not without answers. If avoiding cheeseburgers and twinkies causes you *not* to get T2D even if you are predisposed, I would say that both are causal factors and are right to blame. However, the *type* of environmental factor also plays in. If you feed a cat paracetamol, it will die. Does this simply "reveal" a underlying condition? Is the cat sick to start with? Feeding the cat the substance is what killed it, but the reason it died from it is biological and exposure to a substance it would not encounter in nature. If you happened uppon a cat that survived, THAT would be the oddity.
If you are born with relevant genes, you are, and need to look out. You carry one of many polymophisms in the gene pool, but you are not sick or nessearily abnormal. It just means that under a heavy diet with little exercise - an unnatural lifestyle - you might get sick faster than others. It's *multifactoral*, like most conditions we can get. If you are not very good at skydiving, you should not skydive even if everyone you know does. Cheeseburgers and sedentary lifestyle need to take the blame more than genetics.