Preventine Medicine

1. New perspectives, issuses

Through Holistic Study of Disease Prevention course, I have been able to know deeper about Disease Prevention in a more diverse way . Lessons learned from the lectures were interesting and urged me to think about what are the most appropriate methods to contribute to the preventive medicine areas.

1.1 Personal genomics and healthcare/medicine

Personal genomics can be used as a very effective way to predict and confirm a genetic disease. Through case studies given during the lecture, I have seen that that genomics testing plays an important role in : identify genetic variants that may increase the likelihood of an invidual having a genetic disease later on life; gives patients options of taking preventive measures; advise couples wanting to have children…

However, as far as I know, there are still many debates over this. My most common concern for genetic testing is about the confidentiality and ethical issue. When mentioning about genetic test, I as well as many people concern about how private genetic information are kept. The patients who choose to take genome sequencing for their health care purpose, want to make sure that their genomic information are kept safely and used in the right way. The leak of genomics test information would put patients in many disadvantageous situation. Consider companies as an example. If companies want to know about the health condition of their staffs, they may require the health test information from hospitals/healthcenters, which may affect the work of the staff.

The cost of taking genomic test is also a challenge to patients. People may want to manage their health but still hesitate to do test for disease prevention because the fee could be high, depend on the kind of test.

1.2 Epidemiological approach to evaluating the causes of  complex diseases

After the lesson about epidemiology and how to do epidemiology, I have learned that epidemiological studies is applicable in any fields, and especially crucial in the field of public health and preventive medicine. Depends on the type of diseases and aim of the research, the researcher can choose the most suitable method and design study.  Each study design will have it own limitation and strengths. With complicated diseases, healthworkers can combine many design studies for the best results.

According to the lesson provided, one of the most basic elements of epidemiologic research is that: people are the targets of investigation. This can lead to positive result for community in the future. But for intervention studies, the people who are in the study may have to take risk.  So in my opinion, it is very important to consider the health problem carefully, and explain clearly all the possible outcomes that may happen to the participants of the research.

1.3 Food factors for cancer and disease prevention (Isothiocyanates in the crucifer vegetables)