Why do I look like my Father?

Genetics is a science that helps determine the blood ties that unite people, it is through it that it is possible to determine who is the father or mother of a child. Many people sometimes have the question Why do I look like my Father ?, and with this science you will understand the reasons. 

 

 

Why do I look like my Father? matter of chance or science

According to the science of genetics, people must have half of their genes from their father and half from their mother, hence some children are more similar to their mother or father.

The resemblance of a child to one of its parents does not depend on a single gene, but on the mixture of genes from both plans. Each child, according to scientists and academics, must carry 2 variants (the mother's and the father's) which later means that each physical trait can have 4 possible forms.

It is for this reason that it is difficult to make a prediction about the transmission of one trait or another, for example if you have blue eyes and blonde hair, it is possible that your children inherit one of these traits or perhaps both.

The truth is that the result of resemblance to one father or another will depend on how the maternal information that comes in the ovum and the father's information that comes with the sperm are combined.

In the case of having another child, this new combination of egg and sperm may be made in a different way and the characteristics of the child may be different from the first, unless they are identical twins where the combination is made in the same proportion.

Research conducted at the University of North Carolina indicated that the paternal line is stronger in determining what the physical traits of their children will be like and even more so in terms of their health. Therefore, the inheritance of a gene can have consequences in different ways in the future.

Depending on the strength of the inheritance, that is, if it comes from the mother or the father, a certain disease can come from one of them and manifest itself in one of the children or in all of them.

For other geneticists, everything is a product of chance, because the information of the genes comes through the genes that our parents have transmitted to us. Chance is the one that will determine what the similarity of the children will be, that is to say, it is the combination of the genes that will determine the whole process.

Most physical traits do not depend on the action of a single gene, hence the transmission of genetic information is not predictable.

A characteristic feature is the height of people, not only genes intervene in it, but also the person's diet and if they have contracted diseases that have affected them in childhood. Many people who are tall will surely have tall children, but if they do not have a good diet, this can vary and develop people who are a little shorter.

 

Is it all by Fate?

For the researcher and writer Alfonso Jiménez, author of the book Destinados por el Azar, the genome that our father and mother have transmitted to us are not the same ones that they received when they were born.

It's all a matter of how the genomes have been combined. For each group of genes that are received, a new life or human being arises. Therefore it cannot be said that a person is an exact copy of his father or his mother.

For other geneticists, the genetic combination of father and mother is always the same, but the way in which they are combined is what establishes the differences between siblings of the same couple. When people's appreciations of similarities with their mother or father are made, similarities are only established from what people can see.

But not because in their body there are more genes from their mother or more from their father, otherwise the children that are born would present serious health problems, because there was no balance in the combination of genes.

If a DNA study is carried out in 4 different tissues of a person, 80% of the genes will present variants that can alter the value of the expression and tip the balance towards one of the parents.

Diseases Inherited from Parents

Diseases can be inherited from children, but they will always depend on the type of illness, among them are breast cancer, glaucoma, Alzheimer's or schizophrenia. This does not mean that all diseases are due to genetics, some of them may be due to environmental causes.

Genetic diseases are those in which there is the transmission of a gene that has mutated, and this can reach the child and generate the disease. Environmental illnesses can arise from viral infections.

In various studies carried out, it has been verified that the excesses that parents have with food, the use of drugs, alcohol and even stress, sometimes do not manifest directly in their children but in their grandchildren, who may have an affectation of their development and their health.

Apart from DNA, there is another important factor in determining heredity and in determining the health that children and grandchildren may have, but it is under study and no conclusive data have been shown.

But in short, no father or mother can have control over the genes that their children will inherit, whether they are healthy or not. Diseases such as Down Syndrome can skip generations and run in the family again after many years.

Another genetic disease is cystic fibrosis, which manages to affect the secretory glands of the human body and damage organs of great importance for life such as the lungs, pancreas, liver and even the entire digestive system. This disease is very frequent in people of the Caucasian race (White) and has an incidence in 1 person born in every 5,000 births.