Every data point has significance in the exploration of health in the human body especially in situations where the solution is extremely complex.

Dr. Ben Forred of Sanford Health is a Biomedical Researcher who explains to the Patrick Lalley Show on KSOO that from a research standpoint, there is a wealth of knowledge on common diseases.

"With a common disease, doctors and the medical community know how that disease is going to progress. They'll know that when you get diagnosed with something because it affects unfortunately far too many people and it's well-established, we're going to know how that is going to progress."

Rare diseases only affect about 200 thousand people in the United States. Forred says any information they can get is helpful.

"If you have a rare disease, join the registry. Then you can provide us with as much information about your medical health history as you're comfortable doing. After we get a bunch of people with the same illness, cataloged together we can build that knowledge base. We can use that information to help guide our research programs."

Forred encourages people who have rare diseases to be a part of their Coordination of Rare Diseases registry at Sanford Research.

According to Forred, at any given time half of the research labs at Sanford Research are working with a rare disease case.


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