Huntington's Disease

Huntington's disease is a neurodegenerative genetic disorder that affects muscle coordination and muscle decline and dementia, which is slowly but surely lead to death.

Physical symptoms of this deadly disease can be started from infancy to old age, but usually seen in middle age, between ages 35 to 44 years.

Huntington's disease is caused by autosomal dominant mutations in one of two copies of individual gene called Huntingtin. Huntingtin gene normally provides genetic information to proteins that are also often called 'Huntingtin'.

But mutations in the Huntingtin gene will cause the various stages of damage in certain areas of the brain. Until now, the causes of these mutations are not understood certainty.

Each child of parents of affected Huntingtin gene mutation have a 50 percent risk of inheriting Huntington's disease. But genetic testing can be done at each stage of development, even before the onset of symptoms.

In rare circumstances, in which both parents have the genes that are affected, or both parents has two copies that are affected, the risk is greatly increased.

Until now, there is no cure for this disease and if one family had inherited the gene, then it is like getting the lottery for the next family generation.