Keeping up to date with the latest scientific advancements and maintaining a healthy lifestyle go hand-in-hand.
This was a key message of Our Bio-Future, the first in what organizers hope will be an annual seminar series sponsored by PeaceHealth and Lane Community College’s Center for Leisure and Learning.
More than two dozen participants attended Saturday’s seminar, which explained how to maintain healthy lifestyles and discussed new scientific trends that may affect one’s life span. Events included presentations on scientific news such as the Human Genome Project and interactive workshops concerning topics such as clinical drug trials and legislative issues surrounding health care for senior citizens.
George Sprague, a University biology professor, addressed the crowd about the future implications of genetic mapping and the importance of DNA research in relation to the use of specific drugs and medicines.
He spoke about the Human Genome Project, which involved identifying all 30,000 genes in human DNA. He said even though human DNA is more than 99 percent identical, there are still one million differences between every individual.
“These million differences are what make us different from one another in how we look and how our bodies behave,” he said.
The differences also determine how a person will react to a certain medication.
“If I’m sensitive to a particular drug that others can take, I still shouldn’t take it,” he said.
Sprague also discussed the ethics surrounding gene therapy, a technique in which faulty genes are replaced with healthy genes in an effort to combat sickness. He said while most people are comfortable with using the technique on patients’ tissues and cells to help rid them of a disease, most are uneasy with the idea of using gene therapy to create “perfect humans.”
“People start to fantasize and want children to be 6-foot-5 basketball players,” he said. “We need to find a between ground.”
Educating participants about how drugs reach the marketplace was also the focus of one discussion.
Donald England, medical director of Radiant Research in Eugene, discussed the importance of clinical drug trials, in which a company tests its drugs on volunteer subjects. He said even testing of a pre-existing drug is needed if the drug is going to treat a different disease than the one originally intended.
“You never know how drugs are going to perform with humans until they’re given to humans,” he said.
In the same discussion, Alan Bennett, a public affairs specialist for the Food and Drug Administration in Portland, spoke about marketing drugs and warned participants about media hype declaring major medical breakthroughs and cures for serious diseases.
“There are very few miracle drugs,” he said.
Bennett reminded the audience that there are several good generic prescription drugs that fulfill the same purpose as high-priced brands.
Peggy Hudson, LCC seniors project coordinator, said she is always looking for programs of interest that can help improve participants’ standards of living.
“People are getting to be 50 or 60 [years old] and are thinking maybe they could live to 120,” she said.
Hudson said she hopes to offer three or four similar events each year.
“We like to bring in the experts and see what they can tell us,” she said.