Why are diseases more common in some parts of Europe than others, and why are northern Europeans taller than their southern counterparts?
An international team of scientists say they have unearthed the answer in the DNA of ancient teeth and bones.
The genes which protected our ancestors from animal diseases now raise the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS).
The researchers call their discovery “a quantum leap” in understanding the evolution of the disease.
And they say it could change opinions on what causes MS, and have an impact on the way it is treated.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
MS is a disease where the body’s own immune cells attack the brain and spinal cord, leading to symptoms like muscle stiffness and problems walking and talking.
They discovered that genes which increase the risk of MS entered into north-western Europe about 5,000 years ago via a massive migration of cattle herders called Yamnaya.
The research project was a huge undertaking - genetic information was extracted from ancient human remains found in Europe and Western Asia, and compared with the genes of hundreds of thousands of people living in the UK today.
Prof Lars Fugger, paper author and MS doctor at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, says the discovery helps “demystify” the disease.
Drugs currently used to treat MS target the body’s immune system, but the downside is the risk of suppressing it so much that patients struggle to fight off infections.
DNA from pre-historic hunter-gatherer people raises the risk of Alzheimer’s, but ancient farmers’ genes are linked to mood disorders, the research explains.
The original article contains 686 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Interesting read. So I now wonder if MS also existed and would present itself back when this gene became prevalent (and people lived long enough), or if there are new environmental factors (or anything else) that is tricking this gene/immune system into thinking that the nerve coating is something that it should be attacking.
Microsoft has a gene now?
A lot of eugenics type articles coming out lately, good thing everyone submitted their DNA to big databases in a time of uncertainy
To my understanding DNA doesn’t work as it is portrayed in mass media. We have coding DNA and non-coding DNA. Scientists had the nerve to call the non-coding DNA “Junk DNA” even tho it consists of 99% of the DNA. This percentage is disputed but it’s always a huge percentage. The non-coding DNA has the crucial role to take input from the environment and decides what is going to be coded. In media when they talk about DNA they just talk about coding DNA.
Even tho eugenics is not a department in medical schools anymore, racist scientists often get in the field of the coding DNA research, focusing heritage, undermining in anyway they can the input of the environment, the non-coding DNA.
Here is an relevant article: Multiple sclerosis: Are there genetic causes?
Both genetic and environmental factors play a role in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), which is an autoimmune disease.
Some diseases are purely genetic, which means a person will get the disease if they inherit one or two copies of a specific gene. MS is not genetic in this way.
That’s not eugenics, that’s genetics. Eugenics is the selective breeding of humans like we do with animals to make a better human.
