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One Size Doesn't Fit All Uncovering differences in people's genetic make-ups will help health care providers prescribe the right medicine in the right amount for each person, making medicines more effective. The payoff will be preventing unnecessary effects from the one-size-fits-all medicine dosing that is common today. A bonus of this type of research will be an increased understanding of the genes that cause or contribute to diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, and asthma. Pharmacogenetic research will also help scientists figure out new and better ways to develop future medicines.
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enes determine the make-up of all the body's proteins, and as medicines travel through the body they interact with many of these proteins. Small, but normal, variations in your genes can produce proteins that work differently from those of your friends or relatives. This can affect how you respond—or don't respond—to different medicines. For example, certain painkillers only work when body proteins convert them from an inactive form to an active one. How well these proteins do their jobs varies considerably between people. As another example, tiny genetic differences can change how medicines called statins work to lower blood cholesterol levels.
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