I am no expert in biology and I haven't done biology since grade 8 so instead of me making a fool of myself by trying to explain to you all what causes genetic disorders, I found an article... :)
What is a genetic disease?
A genetic disease is any disease that is caused by an abnormality in an individual's genome. The abnormality can range from minuscule to major -- from a discrete mutation in a single base in the DNA of a single gene to a gross chromosome abnormality involving the addition or subtraction of an entire chromosome or set of chromosomes. Some genetic disorders are inherited from the parents, while other genetic diseases are caused by acquired changes or mutations in a preexisting gene or group of genes. Mutations occur either randomly or due to some environmental exposure.
What are the different types of inheritance?
There are a number of different types of genetic inheritance, including the following four modes:
Single gene inheritance
Single gene inheritance, also called Mendelian or monogenetic inheritance. This type of inheritance is caused by changes or mutations that occur in the DNA sequence of a single gene. There are more than 6,000 known single-gene disorders, which occur in about 1 out of every 200 births. These disorders are known as monogenetic disorders (disorders of a single age).
Some examples of monogenetic disorders include:
- cystic fibrosis,
- sickle cell anemia,
- Marfan syndrome,
- Huntington's disease, and
- hemochromatosis.
This is the link of the website - http://www.medicinenet.com/genetic_disease/article.htm
1 in 200 births..... That is a very high number.... I guess genetic disorders are more common than I thought... This has given me more encouragement to do what I am doing... Hope some of you also think about contributing to this cause....
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