What Is Wilson's Disease?
2. Causes
Wilson’s disease is an inherited condition, meaning it is passed down from the patient’s parents who themselves would have carried a copy of the faulty gene. The faulty gene would be carried in DNA in the parent’s sperm and mother’s egg, and the genes will be shared with each other at the point of conception.
Wilson’s disease is an autosomal recessive trait. This means that the patient must have 2 copies of the gene; one from each parent. If the patient has only one copy of the gene then they will not have the disease. However, somebody with one copy of the gene can still pass that gene onto their children.
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