San Francisco — Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin on Thursday became the first of the company’s top three executives to launch a personal blog called Too, revealing some sobering news: that he carries a specific genetic mutation that predisposes him to developing Parkinson’s disease.
While Brin is not an unfamiliar person to the news-making webcasts and online press announcements, he made a blogging debut Thursday by sharing personal musings in a post at the Blogger weblogging website Google bought in early 2003.
In his first of two inaugural posts Thursday, Brin said he is naming the blog site “Too” in an effort to show its importance on life outside of work. In the second post, The second post on Brin’s blog, is titled “LRRK2” after the gene that he found carries a mutation called “G2019S,” which, “while rare even among people with the disease, accounts, in some ethnic groups, for a substantial proportion of familial Parkinson’s,” Brin said in the blog post.
“It is clear that I have a markedly higher chance of developing Parkinson’s in my lifetime than the average person. In fact, it is somewhere between 20 percent to 80 percent, depending on the study and how you measure,” Brin said.
Brin said that he has discovered through 23andMe, the genetics testing start-up co-founded by his wife, Anne Wojcicki, and Linda Avey, he found that he too carries a particular mutation of the LRRK2, the gene responsible for Parkinson’s.
Brin’s mother and her aunt both suffer from the Parkinson’s disease, he disclosed, Brin wrote.
The research is still early, though, he said. “This leaves me in a rather unique position,” he wrote. “I know early in my life something I am substantially predisposed to. I now have the opportunity to adjust my life to reduce those odds (e.g. there is evidence that exercise may be protective against Parkinson’s). I also have the opportunity to perform and support research into this disease long before it may affect me.” He added that he has an optimistic take on the news.
“Until the fountain of youth is discovered, all of us will have some conditions in our old age, only we do not know what they will be,” he added. “I have a better guess than almost anyone else for what ills may be mine — and I have decades to prepare for it.”
“Early studies tend to have small samples with various selection biases,” he writes.
Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder, which occurs when certain nerve cells (neurons) in a part of the brain called the substantia nigra die or become impaired. Normally, these cells produce a vital chemical known as dopamine. Dopamine allows smooth, coordinated function of the body’s muscles and movement. When approximately 80% of the dopamine-producing cells are damaged, the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease appear.
Symptoms for Parkinson’s disease include tremor (uncontrollable shaking of hands), slowness in movement, rigidity and difficulty with balance. In the United States, it is estimated that 60,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, joining the 1.5 million Americans who currently have Parkinson’s disease. While the condition usually develops after the age of 65, 15% of those diagnosed are under 50.
However medical experts have warned that such tests can be highly misleading unless the results are carefully analyzed and genetic predispositions are not properly understood. They also warn that the stress of receiving adverse results may actually exacerbate health issues.
Brin, a native of Moscow, received a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park. He is currently on leave from the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, where he received his master’s degree.
It was at Stanford where Sergey Brin met Larry Page and worked on the project that became Google. Together they founded Google Inc. in 1998, and Brin continues to share responsibility for day-to-day operations with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.
Google spokesperson Roli Agarwal confirmed the blog was Brin’s.