Personalized Medicine: What's it and How It Can Improve Your Health
 |
| A Healthcare practitioner testing various samples of Personalized medicines |
Keywords:
Personalized Medicine, Precision Medicine, Individualized Medicine, Gene Therapy, Genomics, Pharmacogenomics
Introduction:
Personalized medicine is a way of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease that takes into account various genes, environments, and lifestyles of each person. It is a more accurate and successful way to treat people than traditional medicine, which treats everyone the same, no matter how different they are.
 |
| An image showing Tablets, Capsules & Thermometer as Traditional medicines |
How does Personalized Medicine differ from Traditional Medicine?
Traditional medicine believes that everyone is the same and that the same treatment will work for everybody. This isn't always true because people's genes, the environment they live in, and how they live their lives can all affect how they react to treatment.
You May Also Read:
1. Chemotherapy Induced Hairloss
2. CRISPR Cas9, A Genome Editing Tool
Personalized medicine takes into account how different each person is so that treatments can be made to fit each person's needs. This can make diagnosis and treatment more accurate, reduce side effects, and make patients happier.
 |
| A colored illustration of DNA showing it is present everywhere in the body, pointing towards Personalized Medication |
4 Advantages of Personalized Medicine
1. Improved diagnostic accuracy
Diagnoses can be more accurate because personalized medicine can use genetic testing and other ways to find out what causes a disease.
2. Improved Treatment Accuracy:
Treatments are more accurate because personalized medicine can use knowledge about a patient's genes, environment, and way of life to choose the best treatment for them. This can lessen the chance of side effects and make it more likely that the treatment will work.
3. Reduced Side Effects:
Personalized medicine can help lower the risk of side effects by choosing treatments that are less likely to change a patient's genes or situation.
4. Increased Patient Satisfaction:
Personalized medicine can make patients happier by giving them a treatment plan that is better suited to them and works better.
4 Ways How Personalized Medicine is Used
There are many ways that personalized medicine is used to treat certain illnesses.
1. Cancer:
Personalized medicine is being used to make new cancer treatments that target specific genes or proteins that help cancer grow.
2. HIV/AIDS:
New HIV/AIDS treatments that are more successful and have fewer side effects are being made with the help of personalized medicine.
3. Heart Disease:
Personalized medicine is being used to make new solutions for heart disease that are based on the risk factors of each patient.
4. Alzheimer's Disease:
Personalized medicine is being used to create new treatments for Alzheimer's disease that target the unique genetic mutations that cause the disease.
 |
| A female pharmacologist designing a Personalized Medicine in Pharmacogenomics Lab Credit: Freepik |
5 Different Kinds of Personalized Medicine:
1. Gene Therapy
Gene therapy is a way to treat or avoid a disease by making alterations to a person's genes. Gene therapy can be used to fix a genetic change that causes a disease or to add a new gene that can help the immune system fight the disease.
2. Pharmacogenomics
Pharmacogenomics is the study of how a person's genes affect how they react to drugs. Pharmacogenomics can be used to find out who is more likely to have side effects from certain drugs or who is less likely to respond to them. This information can be used to tailor drug treatment to each patient and improve how well they do.
3. Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that fights illness by using the body's own immune system. Immunotherapy can be used to treat autoimmune disorders, cancer, and other health problems.
4. Nutrigenomics
This is the study of how a person's genes affect how they react to food. Nutritional genomics or Nutragenomics can be used to figure out who is more likely to get better from certain dietary changes or who is more likely to get sick from certain foods. This knowledge can be used to modify nutritional advice to each patient and improve their health.
5. Microbiome-based Medicine
Microbiome-based medicine is a type for therapy that takes into account how the microbiome, or the group of bacteria that live in the body, affects health and illness. Microbiome-based medicine can be used to figure out who is more likely to benefit from certain probiotics or prebiotics or who is more likely to have side effects from certain drugs. This knowledge can be used to make treatment more specific and help patients do better.
5 Ways How Personalized Medicine Work:
1. How Gene therapy works:
It works by putting a new gene into the cells of an individual to replace a bad gene or give the cells a new role. The new gene can be sent to the cells through a transmissible virus, a copy of a plasmid, or a molecule, among other things.
2. How Pharmacogenomics Works:
This is the study of how genes affect how a person responds to drugs. This information can be used to customize drug treatment by giving each patient the right drug at the right amount.
3. How Immunotherapy Work:
Immunotherapy helps the body fight illness by boosting the immune system. Vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and other drugs can be used to do this.
4. How Nutrigenomics Works:
It works by finding the genes that control how a person reacts to food. With this knowledge, a patient's diet can be made more specific by recommending the foods that are best for them.
5. How Microbiome-based Medicine Works:
It works by figuring out what part the microbiome plays in health and illness. This knowledge can be used to make treatments like probiotics and prebiotics that work on the microbiome.
 |
| A pharmacist prescribing a Personalized medicine to a couple Credit: Freepik |
0 Comments
Please don't enter any spam link in the comment section.