Herbal Medicines

How much do you know about DNA? Maybe you learned about it in school but you probably haven’t thought about it much since. Well, here are 5 stats about your DNA that will surprise you.

How Much DNA Is There In The Human Body?

You know that there is DNA in your cells. In fact, DNA is present in all your cells with the exception of red blood cells. But DNA is tiny, right?

After all if DNA fits into a cell then it can’t be that big. So what if you could unwind all the DNA in your body? How far would all that DNA go?

To begin with, one cell can have six to nine feet of DNA. Now, with all the cells in your body, how far do you think all the unwound DNA would go? Actually, it would go to the moon and back six thousand times. Now that’s a lot of DNA.

How Much DNA Do You Share With Other People?

Most people like to think that their DNA is largely unique. After all, they do not look like other people beyond the general human body traits so it has to be mostly different, right? The truth is that human beings have approximately 99% of the same DNA. It is the one tenth of a percent that is left over that creates the differences from one person to another.

How Much DNA Do You Share With A Chimpanzee Or A Banana?

So how close is your DNA to that of a chimpanzee? It is 98% the same. There is not all that much difference between human and chimpanzee DNA. Actually, 50% of human DNA is the same as a banana’s. That’s something to think about.

Are Genetic Traits Always Expressed?

If something is in your DNA then you would think that characteristic has to show up in your life. Actually, it doesn’t. Some traits are not expressed unless the environmental factors favour expression.

The environment in which you live could dictate if certain genetic traits are expressed or repressed. The fact that something is in your DNA does not mean that it will manifest in your life. Sometimes your environment is the deciding factor.

Can Your DNA Be Damaged?

Because it is locked away in your cells you wouldn’t think that DNA itself could be damaged, or at least not easily. In reality, there are many ways that DNA can be damaged. Radiation, chemotherapy, and UV rays are a few of the stimuli that have the potential to damage DNA. While your body may be able to take enzymes as a way to cement the breaks in DNA back together, this is not always done correctly. In some cases, it can even lead to cancer.

These 5 stats about your DNA are surprising. You probably did not know that you had this much DNA or that you share so much with a banana. Now you know that you and the chimpanzee at the zoo have a lot more in common than you might have thought.

T. Rheinecker blogs about how to choose among master’s of health informatics degrees.

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