Medication Sensitivities & Pharmacogenetics

What is pharmacogenetics?

Pharmacogenetics studies how inherited differences affect the way your body processes and responds to medications. Many medications are broken down by liver enzymes from the cytochrome P450 family, such as CYP2D6 and CYP2C19. Genetic variants can make these enzymes work faster, slower or not at all.

• Slower processing may mean a medication builds up, raising the chance of side effects at standard doses.
• Faster processing may mean a medication is cleared before it works as expected.
• For some medications, a variant affects whether the medication is activated at all.

For a number of well-studied gene and medication pairs, international guidelines describe how genetic results can inform prescribing.

What it can't tell you

Medication response also depends on age, kidney and liver function, other medications, diet and health conditions. Pharmacogenetic results are one input among many, and they don't cover every medication.