In Newman, one family is struggling with a disease that is gradually taking away their daughter's ability to move, think, or talk. Lizvet Gonzalez is a 16-year-old girl that is suffering from Huntington's disease.
With this genetically inherited condition, the part of the patient's brain that is responsible for regulating thought, movement, and other psychiatric symptoms is progressively deteriorating, leaving the affected individual with a limited ability to move or communicate. Over time, mental capacities for thinking and judgment also decline, which may lead to the development of psychoses, depression, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and anxiety. Not only does this disease seemingly combine the most severe symptoms of other degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, schizophrenia, it is also fatal.
Dr. Vicky Wheelock who is the director for the Huntington's Disease Clinic at UC Davis Medical Center said that this neurodegenerative illness affects a great number of American families, with over 30,000 people already diagnosed with the disease. It generally strikes during midlife, but it has also been known to affect much younger members of the family, which has proved to be devastating for those involved.
When a person has Huntington's disease, a mutated gene causes the amino acid trio-adenine, cytosine, and guanine-to repeat abnormally within the person's DNA. Scientists now know that the more times this trio is replicated, the earlier the disease manifests itself. Lizvet had 72 repeats in her DNA. She began manifesting symptoms as early as the age of five and was finally diagnosed with the disease at age 10. Her father was diagnosed four years later, after her doctors recognized some of the symptoms that he was also manifesting every time he took her to her doctors appointments. Mr. Gonzales's mother had also died of Huntington's disease. Dr. Wheelock said, "there's something about this being a family disease that gets you in the heart."