Scientists suspect that the genes you inherit may influence how likely you are to take up risky activities, such as mountain climbing or scuba diving. Alcohol is involved in many accidents, and alcoholism has a significant genetic component. What's more, how long it takes you to recover from that meteorite injury may well depend on your genes. At the other extreme are life-threatening illnesses you can have at birth, like sickle cell anemia, or the ones you can develop as you age due to the way your genes are coded. Scientists believe that some 2,500 diseases are simply due to genetics.
Most diseases are a result of complex interactions between genes and environmental factors.
One good example of the genetic and environmental interplay is asthma. When asthma does not run in a family, genes are less strong, and environment is stronger. While these conclusions may sound like pure common sense, the human body is very complicated and understanding how it works is not always obvious. The scientific community is hopeful, however, that new techniques to analyze the DNA in genes will rapidly advance our understanding of asthma and other diseases.