Alcoholism and Disorders in the Human Genes. Term Paper

alcoholism and disorders in the human genes. A lot of diseases have been linked to human gene disorders and research is on-going. The article has five references.

Alcoholism has been recognized as a disease in which there is a desire to consume alcohol. The symptoms of alcoholism include a craving for alcohol, not being able to stop when drinking and consuming large amounts of the substance, exhibition of withdrawal symptoms such as nausea, sweating, shakiness and anxiety when not being able to consume alcohol. The disease is also characterized by development of a tolerance of alcohol so that large quantity of alcohol needs to be consumed in order to get high. [NIAAA. 2002].

It has been recognized that there is a tendency for children to inherit the drinking problems of their parents and therefore alcoholism is a genetically influenced disorder. [NCBI. 2003].

This essay looks at the genetic connection of alcoholism and attempts to answer some questions relating to human genetics and alcoholism.

Analysis

There has been a considerable amount of research done to investigate the link between human genetic disorder and alcoholism. Some factors are indicated as follows:

Genes and genes order

Genes are segments or sections of the DNA that are carried on the chromosomes and determine specific human characteristics like color of the eyes, height, hair type etc. These are located in cells which constitute all living organisms. Each cell contains a substance called deoxyribonucleic acid or the DNA. The DNA inside a cell is wrapped together to form structures called chromosomes. [Nemours 2002].

In a human most cells have 46 chromosomes or two pairs of 23 chromosomes. A human will inherit 23 chromosomes from his father, (the father's sperm cell) and 23 chromosomes from the mother, (the mother's egg cell).Male children will receive an X chromosome from their father and a Y chromosome from the mother. A female child will receive X chromosomes from both the parents. There is a pair of genes for a person except for the boys who have some single genes since they receive an X and a Y chromosome from their parents. Some characteristics come from a single gene whereas other properties derive from a pair of genes. Since there are 30,000 genes therefore the possibilities of rearranging them to produce specific characteristics in humans are numerous. [Nemours.

2002].

Gene inheritance

About 4000 diseases can be caused because there is a change in the genetic set up in cells either due to aging or exposure to certain substances including radiation and chemicals. Sometimes an individual can also inherit genes which are associated with a certain disease. This does not mean, however, that a defective gene will certainly cause a disease since an individual is inheriting genes from both the mother and the father. If a dominant number of genes are defective or associated with a disease because both parents had such genes or their combination has produced such a result then the person has an increased susceptibility to the disease especially if the environment is also conducive to the production of the disease. [Nemours. 2002].

The Human Genome project has recently identified each gene in the body but at this point in time scientists have not identified what each and every gene does. Also the results of the interaction of different genes have not yet been identified. Proteins are made up of amino acids and genes are like recipes for proteins. Thus by determining what kind of proteins will be produced genes determine the entire.....