Genetic testing can reveal changes (mutations) in your genes that may cause illness or disease. Although genetic testing can provide important information for diagnosing, treating and preventing illness, there are limitations.

Some disadvantages, or risks, that come from genetic testing can include: Testing may increase your stress and anxiety. Results in some cases may return inconclusive or uncertain. Negative impact on family and personal relationships.

13.11 Human genetic research generates knowledge with the potential to improve individual and community health. Research can also reveal information about an individual’s susceptibility to disease and hence about the individual’s future health.

Genes can also increase the risk in a family for getting certain health conditions. Families also share habits, diet, and environment. These influence how healthy we are later in life. You share a lot with your family—including what can make you sick.

Genetics can help us to understand why people look the way they do and why some people are more prone to certain diseases than others. Genetics can help health-care professionals to identify certain conditions in babies before they are born using techniques such as prenatal testing.

Changes in many genes, each with a small effect, may underlie susceptibility to many common diseases, including cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and mental illness.

Genetic disorders can be caused by a mutation in one gene (monogenic disorder), by mutations in multiple genes (multifactorial inheritance disorder), by a combination of gene mutations and environmental factors, or by damage to chromosomes (changes in the number or structure of entire chromosomes, the structures that …

African Americans are the most likely to have a disability (14 percent) followed by Non-Hispanic Whites (11 percent), Latinos (8 percent) and Asians (5 percent) (Figure 2).

There is broad consensus across the biological and social sciences that race is a social construct, not an accurate representation of human genetic variation. Humans are remarkably genetically similar, sharing approximately 99.9% of their genetic code with one another.

The Major Divisions of the Human Race Most anthropologists recognize 3 or 4 basic races of man in existence today. These races can be further subdivided into as many as 30 subgroups.

Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa. Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans.

(A) The old concept of the “five races:” African, Asian, European, Native American, and Oceanian. According to this view, variation between the races is large, and thus, the each race is a separate category. Additionally, individual races are thought to have a relatively uniform genetic identity.

A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. The term was first used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affiliations. By the 17th century the term began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits.

Races may exist in humans in a cultural sense, but biological concepts of race are needed to access their reality in a non-species-specific manner and to see if cultural categories correspond to biological categories within humans.

Definitions for Racial and Ethnic Categories

• American Indian or Alaska Native.
• Asian.
• Black or African American.
• Hispanic or Latino.
• Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.
• White.

Medical Definition of Caucasian : of or relating to a group of people having European ancestry, classified according to physical traits (as light skin pigmentation), and formerly considered to constitute a race of humans. Other Words from Caucasian. Caucasian noun.

William Scott-Elliot (1849-1919) was an amateur anthropologist and member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society in its early days. Theosophists were interested in the origins of humanity and the ‘root races’ and believed the Atlanteans were the fourth ‘root race’, ultimately succeeded by the Aryans.

OMB defines “Hispanic or Latino” as a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race.

Black or African American: A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander: A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.

The United States Census Bureau uses the ethnonyms Hispanic or Latino to refer to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race and states that Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race, any ancestry, any ethnicity.

Ethnicity is a broader term than race. The term is used to categorize groups of people according to their cultural expression and identification. Commonalities such as racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin may be used to describe someone’s ethnicity.

Race is defined as “a category of humankind that shares certain distinctive physical traits.” The term ethnicities is more broadly defined as “large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background.”