What is happening with Pharmacogenetics?

Why is there so little knowledge, credibility, and acceptance of pharmacogenetics and, as a consequence, so little support, especially informational support, from official health agencies?

This is the question that all professionals related to FG ask themselves.

In the first place, the delay in the appearance of knowledge of GFR pharmacogenetics is due to the fact that the knowledge and study of genes is relatively recent, since it began in the years 2000-2003, but with a deficient and hardly compromised knowledge transmission response.

In addition, and perhaps most importantly, patients with suspected pharmacogenetic alterations do not find adequate answers and knowledge in their doctor, and simply because they lack information, and if the patient has ever heard anything about GFR, they automatically dismiss it because that is what that the doctor unconsciously transmits to him.



And all of it:

Despite the fact that Pharmacogenetics is studied at the MIR and the FIR, that is, at the universities of medicine and pharmacy, although it is in the last two years when these studies have been more explicit and it is clear that this knowledge has only reached the recent graduates.

Despite the fact that, for example, in Google there are 194,000 results in Spanish and 2,870,000 in English.

Despite the fact that pharmacokinetics, closely related to pharmacogenetics, there are 1,370,000 results in Google in Spanish and 24,100,000 in English.

Despite the fact that the main clinics in the country exist the corresponding professional.

Despite the fact that there is the possibility of carrying out a pharmacogenetic study in all laboratories, even if they refer them to other more specialized laboratories.

Despite the fact that some medical insurance already contemplates compensation for deaths due to Pharmacogenetics. In the USA, 46% of lawsuits against doctors for malpractice are related to adverse effects from medications.

Despite the fact that we are all more or less carriers of genetic mutations and therefore we are all potentially exposed to the adverse effects of drugs.

Despite the fact that countless pages appear on Google reporting on Pharmacogenetics.

Despite the existence of international organizations representative of Pharmacogenetics.

Despite the fact that in various pathologies, especially oncology, new concepts are already being applied in order to optimize pharmaceutical treatments, constituting one of the main advances in cancer.

Despite the fact that in the technical guidelines of the FDA, EMA, AEMPS, even the Vademecum contains the recommendation to carry out Pharmacogenetic tests with dose modifications and even with rejection of medications.



Pharmacogenetics is based primarily on the following process:

Accumulation of drugs in the body of people because they cannot be expelled via the urine or others, producing the consequent harmful or toxic overdosage, or also because they are quickly expelled without achieving the desired objective and all this occurs in people who have mutations in their cytochrome 450 genes, that is, those that nature has given us to be able to expel toxic substances from our organism.

Another factor that has delayed the appearance of Pharmacogenetics is that in many cases its undesirable effects go unnoticed because they do not usually fully manifest themselves until pharmacological treatments for chronic or long-term pathologies begin, and even more so in polypharmacy treatments.



Does all this mean that medicines are harmful? On the contrary, medicines constitute one of the greatest advances of humanity and it is simply necessary to use Pharmacogenetics and make use of each one according to their individual genetics.

A fundamental element for progress in the credibility of Pharmacogenetics is the pharmacogenetic study of the patient, which can be carried out through any specialized analysis laboratory. These analyzes could be the panacea in solving pharmacogenetic problems, but They still have a long way to go to be fully effective due to the implementation and standardization of concepts.