Gene Associated With Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Identified

[Pooka1]

You are so off base with everything it's not even funny anymore. I would hate to wake up every day and assume the worst about people when I have no clue what they are about. It must suck.

The research section has jumped the shark.

[Dingo]

But, that can't really be right, can it? I mean, there are lots of animals that don't fly, but if a bird had a gene which made it flightless, I think we'd consider it a disease.

Or do you mean that it's just a trait (and not a disease) in humans.

Pigeons might think that flightless birds suffer from a genetic disease. Flightless birds don't have a genetic disease, they just have a different survival strategy.

Lots of species are colorblind but that doesn't mean they suffer from a genetic disease. There is probably a good reason for it even though we might not understand what it is.

[Pooka1]

I accept the blame for my comment. I was angry about the non-stop bullying and I just wanted to stop making nice and really call it out. Do you accept the blame for yours?

I'm angry at being accused of having two screen names. Does Dingo accept the blame for that?

Why would I ever NOT want to use my screen name to criticize bad ideas? Nobody has ponied up even a vestige of an answer to that. There is not the slightest hint of a piece of evidence I would ever find that necessary.

[Pooka1]

It looks like somebody whose name rhymes with KOOKA has 2 accounts. 8-)

How's this for bullying, Hdugger?

[Dingo]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I don't mean if a whole species where flightless, I mean if a single bird were not able to fly even though all of its siblings could.

People, in general, see in color. A human who can't see in color is either just a harmless trait, or it's a disease.

90% of people are right handed and 10% of people are left handed. That doesn't mean that 10% of people have a genetic disease. It might serve a useful purpose. In Nordic countries colorblindness is very common. Something about that environment favors it.

Wiki: Color Blindness

Any recessive genetic characteristic that persists at a level as high as 5% is generally regarded as having some sort of evolutionary advantage over the long term, such as better discrimination of color camouflaged objects especially in low-light conditions. At one time the U.S. Army found that color blind people could spot "camouflage" colors that fooled those with normal color vision. It is worth noting, however, that the effect is frequency dependent, because, if the majority of people were dichromats, camouflage dyes would be selected on the basis of deceiving dichromats instead.

Another possible advantage might result from the presence of a tetrachromic female. Owing to X-chromosome inactivation, females who are heterozygous for anomalous trichromacy ought to have at least four types of cone in their retinae. It is possible that this affords them an extra dimension of color vision, by analogy to New World monkeys where heterozygous females gain trichromacy in a basically dichromatic species. Humans have a higher percentage of color blindness than macaque monkeys according to recent research.

[mariaf]

Again, if we only stick to IDEAS and not PEOPLE, then I don't believe that can be considered bullying by anyone's standards (because it isn't).

It's when someone attacks a person OR makes false accusations or incorrect assumptions about a PERSON and their motives, that the term "bullying" should be used.

It is ironic that those of us discussing IDEAS are accused of bullying and not vice versa......

[mariaf]

I'm angry at being accused of having two screen names. Does Dingo accept the blame for that?

Why would I ever NOT want to use my screen name to criticize bad ideas? Nobody has ponied up even a vestige of an answer to that. There is not the slightest hint of a piece of evidence I would ever find that necessary.

Sharon,

That's what is so crazy about this whole thing.

It's as if we just joined the forum yesterday and nobody ever met us before. If there's one thing someone would know about you, it is that you are NOT afraid to put your name to anything here.

Same way that anyone who knows me would know I'd sooner cut off my arm than mock a parent looking for help when I devote so much time to helping parents of newly-diagnosed children.

The word that keeps coming to mind is CLUELESS.

Maria

[Pooka1]

The word that keeps coming to mind is CLUELESS.

Scoliosis is a tough thing to deal with. I think it drives rational people in the other direction at times.

[Dingo]

A 10 degree curve might easily not matter evolutionarily. Do you know what cutoff that rate presumes?

There is a reason that most people have straight spines. I think 10 degrees matters. Probably 5 degrees matters. Humans stand upright and any type of back problem or weakness is a serious hit to fitness. Nobody can determine what the precise cutoff is because we don't have a full understanding of all the evolutionary forces involved.

If you boiled down every post I've ever made they come down to one simple idea.

Mother Nature favors good physical and mental health. If you're betting against natural selection... prepare to lose your bet.

[Dingo]

Somebody needs to determine what the evolutionary benefit is for a species that stands upright to have a weakened, deformed spine.

3% is probably common enough that evolution selects for it every generation. Scoliosis is a net positive trait for the people who have it. Lucky!

Either that or... I'm going to go out on a limb... JUST MAYBE it's not caused by heredity. 8-)

From the Swedish twin study.

CONCLUSION: Using self-reported data on scoliosis from the Swedish Twin Registry, we estimate that 38% of the variance in the liability to develop scoliosis is due to additive genetic effects and 62% to unique environmental effects. This is the first study of sufficient size to make heritability estimates of scoliosis.

Those bolded words appear to support the notion that something is going wrong in the environment. 8-)

[rohrer01]

What are the terms people use to differentiate these two things? And, isn't muscular dystrophy in the second category? It's genetic, but it's not something you inherit from your parents.

Many forms of Muscular Dystrophy ARE inherited from parents. There is a DNA repeat that gets longer and longer with each generation until the affected children can no longer reach sexual maturity and the disease dies off with THAT family. But the error in DNA keeps happening in other families. The disease doesn't just go away.

I know at least three color blind people. They have to have their wives to a lot of very simple things for them, they can't read important signs, etc. It's NOT the same as left-handedness. As far as I know, they are not from Norse decent, or if they are it's way back in the ancestral gene pool. (meant for Dingo)

[flerc]

It's when someone attacks a person

It’s clear that the post triggering this discussion was not an attack for you. You always only reacts when someone ‘attacks’ your friend.

OR makes false accusations or incorrect assumptions about a PERSON and their motives, that the term "bullying" should be used.

Why are you sure are false or incorrect? Is obvious the answer of course!

It is ironic that those of us discussing IDEAS are accused of bullying and not vice versa......

It depends on what kind of ideas, do you not believe? If the idea is to try people don’t talk about nothing having to do with possible solutions out of what surgeons offers of course is right!

[Dingo]

* There is a genetic, heritable component to scoliosis, but it is not *just* a heritable disease.

One of the things many people miss about that point is that it not only describes Scoliosis but almost every other disease researchers have looked at. That includes known infectious diseases.

Leprosy-linked genes identified

Seven genes increase the susceptibility to leprosy, researchers have found.

Scientists pinpoint flu gene

An unlucky combination of "vulnerable" genes could explain why some people recover from the flu overnight and others struggle to shake off the virus for weeks.

When you look at a disease you know from the outset that you'll probably find 2 things.

A) Certain genes will make a person more or less susceptible.
B) The disease will run in families.

People see this pattern in Scoliosis and they think it proves that Scoliosis is genetic or different from other diseases. But in reality it's how biology works across the board.

Have you ever wondered why your dog doesn't catch the flu from you? It's because she has different genes. Human flu virus can't make her sick. So in a sense you could say that the flu is a genetic disease because we have genes that make us susceptible to infection. But of course it's not. The flu is an infectious disease. Heritability only plays a role in susceptibility.

[Dingo]

From the large Danish twin study.
Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis in twins: a population-based survey.

We have found evidence for a genetic etiology in AIS, but the risk of developing scoliosis in 1 twin whose other twin has scoliosis is smaller than believed up until now.

From the large Swedish twin study.
Heritability of scoliosis.

Using self-reported data on scoliosis from the Swedish Twin Registry, we estimate that 38% of the variance in the liability to develop scoliosis is due to additive genetic effects and 62% to unique environmental effects. This is the first study of sufficient size to make heritability estimates of scoliosis.

Those two studies sum up where Scoliosis research sits right now. Scoliosis is less genetic than previously thought and overall it is more environmental than genetic.

There is no reason to debate that. Until another large study finds otherwise that's what we know.

[rohrer01]

C'mon, Dingo. Really? EVERYONE get's the flu. Not everyone gets scoliosis. Scoliosis isn't limited to humans, either. I've seen it firsthand in otherwise seemingly healthy FISH. Honestly, Dingo, I really don't understand your beef with anyone or why you keep bringing up other diseases. We are all capable of doing Google and Wiki (not considered a credible source, by the way) searches. I admire the time and effort you put in with your son, but what are you really trying to prove here that hasn't already been hashed out a bazillion times before? Couldn't your time be better spent looking for other resources to help your son (just in case torso rotation doesn't hold his curve) rather than trying to prove a pathogen theory? So what if it turns out to be? How is that going to help YOUR SON? What will you get out of it, bragging rights on a public forum where you can say, "I told you so!"? How is this helping ANYONE?

From a standpoint of "Survival of The Fittest", Hdugger is right. We as humans will never get better because we are working counter to it. We do things to help save people's lives that would have otherwise died. There is very little Natural Selection in humans (aside from miscarriages and death-dealing childhood diseases). Technological advances have destroyed that aspect of human civilization. We no longer leave deformed or unwanted children and babies out in the cold to die (well some do throw their babies in trash cans - horrendous!). We try to save people and make them better. We fight, fight, fight, but when it comes right down to it, very few people want their offspring to die. Unless we endorse the genocide of weaker individuals and races, who cares about Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest? Really, aren't we all beyond that? WWII is over.

As far as Scoliscore goes, it's just a tool for monitoring purposes. No one is going to just go out and have surgery done on their kid because they scored high on a Scoliscore test. I would try EVERY alternative approach that I could (granted it made logical sense) before I would put my kid or grandkid through surgery, EVEN if they had a very high score. But for those that have had to have surgery, some of these arguments serve no purpose what-so-ever except to make them feel as if they have somehow failed their child. That's not fair to those parents OR their children.