With all of the focus on genetics and disease, it’s easy to forget that humans are more than just the sum of our genes. A new study published in The American Journal of Human Genetics suggests social and environmental factors could play an equal or greater role than genetics in predicting the risk of common diseases. 

To investigate the multifactorial causes of disease, researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine relied on data from the All of Us biobank, which collects information and biological samples from more than 400,000 individuals. They also analyzed survey responses measuring more than 100 social and environmental conditions, which included many risk factors that aren’t usually examined. 

“Some risk factors, such as smoking, have been studied extensively for decades,” study co-author Abhijith Biji said in a statement. “What is especially intriguing is that we also observed associations involving factors like loneliness.”

Read more: “For Every Patient Their Own Drug”

By comparing the data to the incidence of six common ailments (asthma, chronic kidney disease, coronary heart disease, high cholesterol, breast cancer, and prostate cancer), they found that incorporating social measures of health boosted their ability to predict disease risk above genetics alone. Additionally, the social, behavioral, and environmental factors seemed to contribute as much or more to the risk of four of the six illnesses studied (asthma, chronic kidney disease, high cholesterol, and coronary heart disease).

“Genes are an important part of the equation, but they do not determine destiny,” study co-author Samira Asgari explained. “We found that the circumstances of people’s lives—their environments, behaviors, and social experiences—can contribute as much as genetics to predicting disease risk.” 

Still, the researchers stress that these findings aren’t about determining the single cause of any of these conditions. Instead, they highlight the need for more comprehensive models of disease risk, that take into account the context in which genes and other factors interact. 

Or as Asgari put it, “To truly understand health, we have to look at the whole person, not just their DNA.”

Enjoying Nautilus? Subscribe to our free newsletter.

Lead image: lembergvector / Adobe Stock