The Three Types Of Genetic Testing

Time plays a major role in the lives of most modern day Americans. Often so much of that time is spent at work, spent socializing, and even spent planning on how to spend your future time. With time being such a prominent part of our lives we are often thrown off and even angered when something clashes with our schedule. With our society being such a microwave society we want things to happen when we want them and how we want them and when there is an interference with that ideology or with our schedule we tend not to know how to handle it. One of those variables that tend to interfere with our schedule is disease. In 2012, among noninstitutionalized civilian adults 49.8% or one hundred seventeen million of them had at least one of ten selected …show more content…
Not only does this help us when it comes to our schedules, but it also prepares us for the negative mental and emotional aspects that a disease can have on us and our friends and family as well as even giving us the possibility to take steps to lessen the chance of the disease developing. There are three different forms of genetic testing that can be done. These are gene tests where individual genes or relatively short lengths of DNA or RNA are tested. Another form of testing is chromosomal tests where whole chromosomes or very long lengths of DNA are tested. The last form of testing is biochemical testing, where protein levels or enzyme activities are tested. (FAQ) The DNA or RNA taken for a gene test is taken from a person’s blood, body fluids like saliva, or tissues. The signs looked for in these tests can be large or small. Large changes could be a gene that has a section added or missing while a small change could be an altered chemical base in the DNA strand. According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, “Gene tests may also detect genes with too many copies, individual genes that are too active, genes that are turned off, or genes that are lost