Breakthrough in deadly disease is 'life-changing'

A STUDENT who had sworn off having children in case she gave them deadly Huntington's disease says a "life-changing" scientific breakthrough has changed her mind.

- Howard Lloyd and Jack Lyons

Chloe Hall is only 20 years old but says she had already decided not to have children after watching her grandmother die from the progressive hereditary disease.

But after researchers made the landmark announcement on Wednesday that a new gene therapy could slow the onset of the illness by 75%, Chloe is "over the moon" and reconsidering parenthood.

The accountancy student says she didn't fully understand the disease as a child until watching her grandmother decline and then die from Huntington's in 2013, aged just 49.

Around 7,000 people in the UK suffer from Huntington's, which affects movement, thinking and mood.

Symptoms gradually worsen over time and life expectancy after their onset is between 15-20 years.

It is a hereditary disease but onset of symptoms does not usually begin until between the ages of 30 and 50.

Chloe says she was initially eager to get tested but doctors urged her to wait and "build a bridge with her future" before she thought about finding out about any diagnosis.