Michael Jackson, Health Rumors, and Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency
News reports, perhaps misinformed, suggested that the King of Pop needs a lung transplant
By
Lindsay Lyon
Posted December 23, 2008
If Michael Jackson, or anyone else, is diagnosed, what do you recommend?
If Michael Jackson truly does have the disorder, I would recommend that immediate family members be tested, particularly siblings—[siblings] are at the most risk for having a similar deficiency state. In a family in which the parents are both carriers who don't have the full-blown disease, about every child has a 1 in 4 chance of having the full-blown deficiency. That's why we usually recommend that the siblings be tested. That way we can at least—if nothing else—encourage them to quit smoking because smoking is the most common precipitating cause of emphysema [or lung destruction] in alpha-1's.
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