Another clue about SIDS

Kids who die of SIDS have low levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin regulates things like breathing, heart rate, and sleep. 

I predict:

• We will find some gene or set of genes that determines the seratonin level in the gut and in the brain and nervous system (the two places serotonin is found).
• SIDS kids will have alleles that reduce serotonin production in the brain to a point where they die as infants.
• This will turn out to be a case like sickle-cell anemia, where one copy of a gene prevents some bad thing from  happening but two kills you.
• Within the lifetime of my offspring, we will begin to sequence the DNA of every child born in a hospital in the US and put it in a research database, to compare genetic and medical histories.
• We will develop a therapy to increase serotonin levels (medication, gene therapy) and give it to kids with the SIDS genes.
• This therapy will reduce SIDS to very low levels.
• We will find that the therapy has unintended consequences, as serotonin becomes overproduced in the gut in some kids receiving the therapy. (I hate to think that that would look like.)
• It will still be worth it not to have them die as infants.