Because of the quality of our healthcare in western society, we have almost removed natural selection as the “janitor of the gene pool”.
‘Natural selection in the past had an ample opportunity to eliminate defective genes introduced by mutations.
He said: ‘However, natural selection has been significantly reduced in the past 100 to 150 years, and the direct consequence of this process is that nearly every individual born into a population can pass genes to the next generation, while some 150 years ago, only 50 per cent or less of individuals had this chance.
‘Unfortunately, the accumulation of genetic mutations over time and across multiple generations is like a delayed death sentence.
‘Allowing more people with cancer genes [to] survive may boost cancer gene accumulation. Patients who survive it will have a chance to pass this predisposition to the next generation.
and
Rather than just removing cancers, the researchers add patients should undergo genetic engineering that ‘turns off’ their tumour-causing genes.
Professor Henneberg added: ‘Assuming that the increasing genetic load underlies cancer incidence as one of the contributing factors, the only way to reduce it remains genetic engineering- repair of defective portions of the DNA or their blockage by methylation and similar approaches.
‘These techniques, though theoretically possible, are not yet practically available.
‘They will, however, need to be developed as they provide the only human-made alternative to the disappearing action of natural selection’.
Fascinating perspective and research. I think we are totally unequipped to understand the long-term implications of how we are changing the human body.