{"id":9219,"date":"2022-06-15T04:14:20","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T04:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/es\/?post_type=product&p=9219"},"modified":"2022-06-15T04:14:32","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T04:14:32","slug":"how-close-are-we-to-a-cure-for-huntingtons","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.booksofall.com\/es\/how-close-are-we-to-a-cure-for-huntingtons\/","title":{"rendered":"How close are we to a cure for Huntington\u2019s?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-five years after the discovery of the gene behind Huntington\u2019s disease, Peter Forbes reports on the potential first treatment for this devastating condition.<\/h4>\n
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It came completely out of the blue,\u201d says James*. They had thought it was his father\u2019s knees that were the problem \u2013 he was never comfortable and was constantly shifting them. \u201cHe went to the doctor, and he said, \u2018You have got osteoarthritis.\u2019 So that was put to bed for a few months.\u201d But that wasn\u2019t the end of it. James\u2019s father deteriorated and consulted a different GP, who said, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about your knees, why are you moving so much? Why can\u2019t you keep still? I\u2019m going to refer you to a specialist.\u201d James and his mother started to realise that his father\u2019s movements were nothing to do with his knees. That was a smokescreen. The real cause was Huntington\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

First characterised in 1872 by the American physician George Huntington, the disease is one of the cruellest, coldest killers on Earth. It\u2019s caused by a mutation of the HTT gene, which creates a toxic protein that gradually destroys vast tracts of the brain, eventually removing all the person\u2019s mental faculties. This mutated gene is dominant, meaning that only one of your two copies of HTT needs to be faulty for you to have Huntington\u2019s. If one of your parents has the disease, there\u2019s a 50 per cent chance of you inheriting it.<\/p>\n

For those who know they are at risk, life has always been an agonising waiting game. There is no cure, and symptoms on average begin in the mid-40s (it then usually takes around 15 years to kill). Indeed, for more than 100 years after the disease was characterised, those at 50:50 risk of inheriting it had no way of ending the uncertainty until the symptoms started.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was only around 50 years ago that the condition began to emerge into the light of day. On 3 October 1967, the folk singer Woody Guthrie died in New York from what was then called Huntington\u2019s chorea (chorea<\/em>\u00a0is the Greek word for dance and refers to the uncontrollable movements made by people with the disease). A few months later, Leonore Wexler \u2013 wife of Milton Wexler, a prominent American psychoanalyst \u2013 was diagnosed with the same condition.<\/p>\n

Reference:<\/h4>\n