Gigantic study of Chinese babies yields slew of health data
nature.com
nature.com
> The blood thinner clopidogrel, or Plavix, doesn't work in the 75 percent of Pacific Islanders whose bodies don't produce the enzyme required to activate the drug. For them, taking the medication is like taking a placebo.
> People with epilepsy who are of Asian descent are supposed to get genetic testing before being prescribed the seizure medication carbamazepine, because the drug can damage the skin and internal organs of patients with a certain gene variant.
> And, says Oh, "African-Americans and Puerto Ricans don't respond as well to some of the most common asthma controller medications, and that's really a tragedy since these two groups are the most affected by asthma in the United States."
But in some (carefully defined) cases they get close.
Medically important genetic differences between ethnicities exist, but it's important to note the limits of this analysis. Usually these are fairly low-level traits, i.e. different enzyme activity, and it's critical not not over-extend the logic to more complex emergent traits such as intelligence or others where clean biochemical links are suspect. Saying a certain set of constraints changed the way certain enzymes work in a given population is not the same as saying this group is better than another group.
It's just plain true.
"While variation within groups is generally larger than that between groups"
That line is for the big traits, like intelligence, strength, etc. Those are made up of many, many genes, and I've even seen a couple of recent articles that suggest the answer to the question "which genes affect intelligence?" may well be "all of them". When it comes to specific genes, though, the incidences can be correlated very strongly to ethnicities/races.
If you're having trouble squaring that with your political pieties, bear in mind that it's actually all correlations, not causations. The real cause of the genes an individual has is their literal ancestry (i.e., not their "race" but their exact ancestry, the exact humans and indeed even the exact genes carried by the relevant eggs and sperms), and it isn't that surprising that that correlates strongly with something else that is very tied to ancestry. But really, it's a separate process.
There is a de-novo genetic mutation my wife has. She didn't get it from either of her parents. (You know what I mean.) The races of all the individuals involved have nothing to do with the fact that one of our children also has it and one does not.
It's sort of important that we not freak out about "races" showing up in medicine; is it more important that people get correct medical treatment and live better lives and at times just plain live even if we can only use a crude tool for a while, or that our particular delicate political beliefs be left unchallenged? I know which I choose.
Huh? In medical contexts I've always understood race as a person's genetic background and ethnicity as a person's cultural background. The two often don't align as many might expect: an adopted child, for example, could be racially South Asian but ethnically French because they speak French, enjoy French food and culture, perceive their self as French, etc.
I've heard that maybe once every 20 years. It just isn't the way the language is used. It may not be anyone's fault, but the conflation is the way it is AFAIK.
You're right that ethnicity and the common definitions of race (i.e. skin tone, hair color/texture, dominant facial features) don't always correlate as well as expected, but that doesn't stop it from being used that way. Another example in addition to yours would be someone who is north african and someone who is south african may have quite different tolerance to lactose because of different prevalences of cattle herding in those regions of the world (Lactose tolerance arises very quickly when humans raise cattle). Still an outside observer would label them both "Black", despite their ethnicities and genetic makeups being different.
In short, ethnicity/race/genetics are all correlates but not absolutes. You have to do a follow-up test, you have to be careful in your assumptions or you'll make a mistake.
After further thought, I should have added an /s at the end or better yet not posted at all. My apology for the dishonesty to anyone who took this literally.
I just google it the term for what black women have they call it triple negative.
https://theconversation.com/why-is-breast-cancer-mortality-h...
One big reason why this happen is there are more clinical trials for white people than there are of other races. One of the reason for this that I got from her is that other races aren't lining up in numbers to go through clinical trials and that there should be more out reach in educating.
In that context, I think this study is great. It is always true that the results of a study in a narrow group do not extrapolate to a larger group and it is good to be aware. However, that doesn't mean it can't generate hypotheses for a larger group (which can then be studied). The researchers likely would not have had the pull to generate an equivalent amount of data and follow-up data for a world-wide population, but I'm glad they did the best they could rather than spend their day posting criticisms on HackerNews.
Limited ethnic and geographical selection of participants means this 'slew' of data will likely be less valuable than this article lets on. Helpful to that immediate area? yes.
with references.
It's also common to give it to women who have short luteal phases and want to conceive.
I would, mildly speculatively, hazard that enormous cost overruns are permissible and acceptable to the tune of 1000% if we could execute a similar cohort study in the entire United States for 30-50 years. The wealth of knowledge they can reveal is absolutely astounding and informs post/ante/neo-natal care to the point of redefining key practices.