The height that your child can present in the future is linked to the genes, this was known, but the genes involved were not yet identified. Nature Genetics magazine reveals the discovery made by a group of scientists who have managed to find the relationship between height and genes.
Although it is intuited that there are many more genes that influence the height that a child can present when he reaches adulthood, the so-called HMGA2 gene is already known, two copies of this gene in a child will make him a centimeter taller than another child That only has one copy. Of course, this gene is not the determinant of the final height, but its discovery represents a first step to detect all the genes involved in height and know exactly in the future what height a child could reach. To discover the relationship between height and the MGA2 gene, it was necessary to study the genome of 35,000 individuals, comparing the genetic codes presented by the tallest individuals with the lowest. After an exhaustive work it was possible to discover the relationship between the variation of height and the variation of this gene.
As we said before it is not a determining discovery, because the difference of one centimeter is not significant if we put for example all those basketball players who are over 2 meters tall and whose parents do not exceed 180 centimeters in height.
As far as food is concerned, this is also not decisive for height as many people believe, since after several tests in which children have enjoyed identical food, some have grown spectacularly and others have not exceeded the national average.
The first step has been taken, the search for all the genes involved in the height will allow in the future to predict the different problems related to growth or other diseases indirectly related to this factor.
It will not take long for a child to have a genetic card that shows their biological future showing information about future diseases, their height, the most appropriate diet to follow (nutrigenomic) and all those aspects related to genetics, will undoubtedly be A great leap for human health.
