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The human genome has many permanent viruses within it which may be responsible for many non-communicable diseases such as cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS). 8% of our DNA comes from ancient viruses and 40% may have viral origin. A lot of the viral genes are harmful but some are good or have little effect at all. The ones that are harmful however keep parasites in our body in a way that can not be permanently dealt with, however, the body does have ways to prevent the genes from being expressed. HIV is a retrovirus that embeds itself in the DNA, and cures for HIV have been shown to also help with ALS, possibly because they target the virus genes that embed themselves in our DNA.

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