Sergey Brin often finds himself in the news for his association with Google (he co-founded the company and is worth around $15 billion), but few are aware of the part he’s played in the ongoing fight against Parkinson’s disease. A gene mutation places Brin’s likelihood of developing Parkinson’s at about 50%, although a schedule filled with exercise (Brin is a competitive springboard diver) and other remedies brings his self-assessed risk down to about 10%.
An interesting aspect of the article mentions that most people who are told that they are genetically predisposed to developing a disease like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s are expected to receive the news badly. This hasn’t been the case. Subjects have in fact been taking the news in stride and used it as motivation to adjust their lifestyles in order to help stave off the development of the disease.
Doing what you can now to prevent the disease from happening seems to be the overriding theme of the article, as Brin’s investment of millions of dollars into Parkinson’s research is remarkable primarily because he still hasn’t developed the disease, much less showed symptoms of it. And while most of us won’t be able to afford the genome analysis he received (his wife founded a company that analyzes people’s DNA), there are enough telltale signs in our genetics that we can glean from our family trees to urge us to adjust our lives to be more healthy and hopefully Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease-free.
Read the whole article here.
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It’s great to see somebody using their influence and fame to create greater awareness for Parkinson’s.
It really is! Hopefully people will also notice that because he hasn’t been afflicted with Parkinson’s yet, in many ways he’s also showing that doing what you can to prevent it can be just as important as finding the cure.