Epidemiology of chronic disease.

In the Journal Science today is an interesting article from the school of public health at UC, Berkeley about environment and disease risks. The article suggests that the current epidemiologic approach to analyzing the course and possible intervention for chronic diseases focuses on nature rather than nurture and recommends that genetic studies should also be accompanied by better environmental assessments. At the same time this week’s Journal Lancet, has several articles dealing with the validity and usefulness of the current state of personal genome assessments. The articles in both journals are worth reading as they complement each other, however the one from Berkeley seems to be founded more on political bias than biological credibility. With all the knowledge developed for interventions in obesity and its relation to calories and exercise I find it hard to believe that there is something out there in the environment that is more important.