Dissecting complex disease: the quest for the Philosopher's Stone?
Dissecting complex disease: the quest for the Philosopher's Stone?
复制标题
DOI：
10.1093/ije/dyl001
复制
发表时间：
2006-06-01
影响因子：
7.7
通讯作者：
Fullerton, Stephanie M.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Buchanan, Anne V.;Weiss, Kenneth M.;Fullerton, Stephanie M.
寻找复杂疾病的原因是否类似于炼金术士徒劳地寻找魔法石？在工业化国家，复杂的慢性疾病对公共卫生产生巨大影响。为了预测哪些人会受到影响，或者在影响出现之前加以预防，人们已经花费了大量的精力来研究其原因，但进展充其量是停滞不前。在本文中，我们讨论了可能的原因，包括使用适合点源和孟德尔疾病但可能不适合复杂疾病的模型和方法，依赖可能不像传染病那样相关的因果标准，以及复杂疾病本身的生物学。最后，我们要问的是，是否大多数复杂的疾病甚至是我们基于传染病和孟德尔疾病的经验所期望的那种预测和预防的良好候选者。
Is the search for the causes of complex disease akin to the alchemist's vain quest for the Philosopher's Stone? Complex chronic diseases have tremendous public health impact in the industrialized world. Much effort has been expended on research into their causes, with the aim of predicting who will be affected or preventing effects before they arise, but progress has been halting at best. In this paper, we discuss possible reasons including the use of models and methods that fit point-source and Mendelian diseases but may not be as appropriate for complex diseases, reliance on causal criteria that may not be as relevant as they are for communicable diseases, and the biology of complex disease itself. Finally, we ask whether most complex diseases are even good candidates for the kind of prediction and prevention that we have come to expect based on experience with infectious and Mendelian disease.