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Asked by nathan on 7 Dec 2021.
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Thomas Nicol answered on 12 Nov 2021:
Simply because we don’t know about the underlying genetic causes of all diseases. Many diseases aren’t caused by genetic abnormalities, or they are caused by interactions between many genes and each allele only contributes a portion of the risk of developing that disease. As we learn more, then we can make more genetic diagnoses, but right now we are only confident of predicting diseases with fairly simple genetics.
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Joaquin de Navascues answered on 12 Nov 2021:
Some diseases do not have a genetic origin – infections by external pathogens are the easiest example. Many diseases may have a genetic component, but are influenced by lifestyle (diet, exercise, smoking, stress, etc) – clear examples are diabetes, cancer, or some autoimmune diseases (where the immune system attacks its own body). As Thomas answered in the question “can a genetic test predict whether I have a condition”, some diseases with a genetic component are caused by many interacting genes and may not have been entirely elucidated, so genetic tests could only tell you whether you have a risk of developing it.
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Henry Jenkins answered on 12 Nov 2021:
Because at this moment in time, we don’t have the knowledge or the means to test and make predictions for all ‘genetic’ diseases.
It becomes even more complex, when changes to the genetic code that can lead to disease vary in how much they contribute to the patients illness.
Gene mutations can be acquired and/or inherited; these can vary in how ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ they contribute towards a patients disease!
Environmental factors such as lifestyle (diet, smoking) cause acquired mutations, meaning that you cannot predict all genetic illness at an early age!
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Madeleine Heep answered on 15 Nov 2021:
Not every disease is caused by defects in your DNA. Many diseases are caused by external factors while the DNA is perfectly healthy. If you smoke for example, you do have a high risk for lung cancer despite your DNA being perfectly normal.
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Jessica Yang answered on 17 Nov 2021:
This is a great question! At the moment, we just don’t know enough about what causes all diseases, and what we do know about a lot of diseases is that they are very complicated. This usually means that it is not possible to say for definite that having this gene or this set of genes will lead to this disease. You have to think about other factors too – not just genetics.
There is also still a lot of diseases that we just don’t know enough about. This is why we need to keep doing research on them, to better understand their causes!
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