so i was reading that UW research had found that coumadin (a drug i am currently taking, and probably will for the rest of my life) has been shown to be more effected by genes than all the other crap they tried to feed me when they were telling me i had to take it.

first a little background. coumdadin (or warfarin) is a drug that interferes with your blood’s clotting by deadctivating one of the steps in the middle (i think there’s 14 steps to platlette formation) and keeps blood from thickening up on itself. this is a problem for someone like me who has DVT (diverticulitus) where my blood flow in my left calf has been restricted due to clots formed after a repair on my ACL.

so basically, blood can get down fine, but it has problems making it back, resulting in a swollen calf. it’s not a danger anymore now that i’m on all these drugs, but if the clot had broken off and reached my lungs, it probably would have been curtains for me.

so warfarin keeps my blood thin, to keep more clots from forming. hence injuries are pretty bad if they occur. roll your ankle, and it’s going to take three times as long to heal due to all the excess blood that helps in the swelling, along with physical therapy to help push it all out. cut your self and it bleeds for about 3 times as long.

pretty much everything you do effects how thin your blood is. it must be taken at the exact same time once a day. no radical alterations in diet. no dark leafy veggies or peanut butter. no alcohol. no advil, aleve, tylenol. basically anything and everything can effect your ProTime (prothombrin time, amount of time it takes to form prothombrin, an intermediate in your blood’s clotting cycle) which if too high will mean death.

fun fact: did you know that warfarin is also used as a rat poison? feed enough of it to any organisim and it’s blood will get so thin as to hemorrhage throughout the body.

anyways, back to the discovery. UW researchers found that it is genetically linked by analyizing people’s DNA and comparing it to the Human Genome, availible to any one at NCBI’s website.

a statistical algorithim to search any genome that has been sequenced is availible there called BLAST. it can line up single base pairs of DNA, translated sequences, or straight protein sequences. this allows researchers to compare findings in their research to anyone elses’. the research could be similar or completly different, but the information provided by the genomic libraries is so broad that alot of interpretation is needed. the stuff we can do now with this technology is amazing though. these kind of DNA comparisons would not have been feasible as much as 5 years ago. the internet has helped science by leaps and bounds, but it’s kinda obvious as to why. with everyone able to quickly compare notes with other people who are doing similar things, the research can progress that much quicker.

hopefully in the next couple of years i’ll have a coumadin gene implanted in my body that makes the perfect amount of blood thinners for my needs. what seemed impossible 10 years ago is now almost a reality. pretty cool, i say