Have you ever been told “you have your mother’s eyes”, “you have the same character as your father” or “you look just like your uncle”? Well, it’s not just a figure of speech, but there is a whole science specialized in it: genetic inheritance.
Genetic inheritance studies how certain hereditary traits are transmitted from generation to generation. That is, how certain physiological, morphological or biochemical characteristics are transmitted from parents to children in the process of fertilization and gestation. All this information that is transmitted is what is known as genetic material and contains information about hair color, eye color, height, physical abilities, predisposition to certain diseases and even our character. It’s all in the DNA.
But how does genetic inheritance work?
We all receive genetic material from our parents and this material is organized by genes. Genes are storage units of genetic information. That is, they are segments of DNA that reflect a represented function, such as hair color, the probability of having myopia or the predisposition to put on weight easily.
In turn, each gene contains two copies or alleles, since each comes from a parent. If these alleles suffer some genetic error or mutation, it is possible that the parents transmit some genetic diseases to their children. These may or may not develop depending on various aspects and conditioning factors.
There are several patterns of genetic inheritance that we must take into account:
- Autosomal dominant: In this case one allele dominates over the other. If this allele is mutated, there is a 50% chance that the disease will be transmitted to the offspring.
- Autosomal recessive: The normal allele dominates over the mutated allele and both parents are carriers of the mutation, the offspring will have a 50% chance of also being carriers and a 25% chance of having the disease.
- X-linked inheritance: This refers to genetic conditions associated with the X chromosome. Remember that males have only one X chromosome while females have two. That is why the presence of a mutation on one X chromosome is sufficient to cause the disease. However, parents cannot pass on an X-linked dominant inheritance condition to their sons, but all daughters of an affected father will have the disease and there is a possibility that they will pass it on to their sons and daughters in the future.
genetic inheritance in sport
Genetic inheritance in sport
Of course, genetic inheritance is a determining factor and can be decisive in areas such as sports, where a favorable predisposition to certain exercises can make a difference.
If you are curious to know more about your genetic inheritance and how it can condition or enhance your abilities, CrossDNA genetic tests are your solution. With a simple saliva sample, they analyze your DNA and let you know where your anthropological roots come from. This way you can identify the sports in which athletes with your genetic characteristics have traditionally triumphed, and assess whether they are sports in which you may be interested in specializing.
To do this, we compare your genetic map with an extensive DNA database with markers from countless places around the world.
This test is performed on your autosomal DNA. This is the one that gives us the genealogical information of the male and female gamete, inherited in turn from previous generations, going back hundreds or even thousands of years.
But how much do genetics define me?
Genetic inheritance is the basis of who we are, but it is not who we are. We are not exactly the same as our parents and our parents are not the same as our grandparents. The magic of genetics is that it establishes a foundation on which we will work throughout our lives.
There are experts who claim that genetic inheritance can influence personality by up to 60%. But of course, there are many other factors that influence how we are, such as the environment, the people we surround ourselves with, education, environment, lifestyle….
In short, it is true that the genetic load conditions the inherited physical traits and genetic behavior. But the influence of our surroundings plays a fundamental role in the construction of our personality and our capabilities.
