GLP Podcast: ‘Toxic 10’ chemicals in food; Gene editing treats heart disease? Dog-breed myths debunked

• Scared to death: These ‘Toxic Ten’ chemicals have been widely detected in many commonly-consumed fruits and vegetables

These 10 substances can literally kill you if you consume them in large enough quantities. They’re found in every single food you eat, organic and conventional, and there’s no product label that could help you avoid them in the grocery store. Each has a challenging chemical name, but all of them can be classified as—vitamins. Eaten in the reasonable amounts found in plants and animals, vitamins are of course perfectly safe and necessary for good health. Nonetheless, the toxic 10 illustrates just how misleading claims about “harmful chemicals in food” can be.

• Understanding genetic basis for heart disease opens up opportunity for gene editing solution

People who carry certain mutations in the PCSK9 gene are predisposed to develop very high (and potentially harmful) levels of LDL cholesterol, which can lead to heart disease. Thanks to advances in gene-editing, these patients in the coming years may have access to a one-time treatment that corrects the troublesome mutation responsible for their abnormally elevated cholesterol levels. Are we moving closer to an outright cure for heart disease?

• Is your pit bull aggressive? Labrador affectionate? Genetic study challenges widely held belief that breed drives canine personality

If you think you can predict a dog’s temperament based on its breed, you’re probably wrong, according to a just-published study. The researchers asked hundreds of dog owners about their pets’ behavior and compared the results with 11 genetic regions strongly associated with traits like howling and sociability with humans. The surprising conclusion: These DNA segments are not more common in certain breeds than others.

Even behavioral traits often thought to be breed specific, for example, how well a dog responds to commands, varied significantly among individual animals within the same breed. Will subsequent research force us to rethink our assumptions about man’s best friend?