Posted on 12/25/2013 6:05:05 PM PST by Pharmboy
Paris — Scientists on Wednesday said they had found a variant of a gene to explain why Latin Americans are at higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, and pointed to a possible DNA legacy from the Neanderthals.
The variant lies on a gene called SLC16A11, which plays a part in breaking down fatty molecules called lipids, they said in the journal Nature.
A research consortium called SIGMA -- for the Slim Initiative in Genomic Medicine for the Americans -- sought to understand why Type 2 diabetes in Mexicans and other Latin American populations is roughly twice as great as among non-Hispanic whites in the United States. They carried out a DNA comparison of 8,214 Mexicans and other Latin Americans, who were divided into diabetics and non-diabetics.
Those with the SLC16A11 variant were around 20 percent likelier to develop the disease compared to counterparts without this signature, they found.
Prevalence of the variant was especially high among people of full Native American ancestry, of whom around 50 percent had it. Among Latin Americans generally, it was 30 to 40 percent.
A comparison with other ethnic groups found the variant in around 11 percent of East Asians, but rare among Europeans -- two percent -- and absent among Africans. The gene type may well be an inheritance from intermingling between two groups of early humans, Homo sapiens -- anatomically modern man -- and the Neanderthals, according to the study.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
I thought all of you might be interested in this for various reasons...and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
There were Neanderthals in the Americas?
Mohawk oral tradition says:
“...the Stone Giant who lived in the rocks [caves?]. Traditional enemies of the Haudenosaunee, the Stone Giants were much feared cannibals. They lived in upstate New York before the Haudenosaunee, and they resisted being destroyed. Like giants everywhere, they eventually were OUTWITTED. When they died, their bodies became stones. That is why there are so many stones all around us. These stones remind us of the Stone Giants.”
http://www.iroquoismuseum.org/ve5.htm
There were never any Neanderthals in Africa, thus Africans never had the chance to interbreed with them.
One would beg to differ.
1. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
“No...there were no Neanderthals in the Americas.”
2. A negative cannot be proven.
Hypothesis: If there were no Neanderthals in Americas, from whence did the 50% gene factor originate?
Asia?
Australia?
Hawaii?
Would there not be 50% factor remaining in Asia somewhere?
[Hairy Ainu?]
Or did the Asian 50% factor die out too, in Asia and left Amerinds orphans on a new continent(s)? or was the 50% diluted by interbreeding in Asia?
3. Or did the Proto-Europeans cross an ice/land/sea/boats bridge from the northern European shores to Americas inbetween Ice Age glacial flows?? [AHA! Did Neanderthals know how to build a boat???]
4. Do Canadian, USA and Greenland eskimos have the 50% gene factor?
well duuhhhhhh
Well, First nation people just gotta know, ya`know
or they just can`t sleep at night not knowing what the hell happened to their 50% way back when...
Merry Christmas!
Well, churros probably are involved.
Until Europeans (the Spanish) arrived, the natives had no cooking oils, no sugar and very little animal protein, particularly in certain more barren parts of the inland Americas. Sheep, cattle, domesticated goats and draft or transportation animals such as horses were all brought by the Spanish.
Indians weren’t immediately able to adapt to this change in diet, although I suspect that it was really the change to a sedentary lifestyle in the 20th century that did them in.
This is more crapola from the geniuses in genetic engineering that have promised the sun, moon and stars for over thirty years and delivered almost nothing in translational science.
“Please give me another gazillion dollar grant and I promise to be better next time around.” The major opportunities for translational science will be delivered from metabolomics and epigenetics. Our food environment and lifestyle environments are the underlying causes for the degenerative diseases like diabetes, stroke & heart disease. Hint: Humans with dark skin suffer from dramatic health disadvantages when they reside in northern latitudes. 12% of the entire human genome is regulated by vitamin d3. 2400 genes can be switched on/off when a person is vitamin d3 deficient.
Glad you know the answer to everything. We need more like you. Sheesh.
BTW, have you ever had authentic churros? They are awesome and there is no comparison with fast food or frozen churros. When I was a boy, I used to go spear fishing at Punta Banda, and there was a push cart vendor there who fried them fresh in oil. Hot, crunchy, tender and sweet, like donuts from heaven.
Sorry, no ad hominem intended. These articles need to be posted and ridiculed in the proper context. We are inundated through the complicit media with what ever serves the purposes of big pharma and keeps us ignorant of the necessity to be in charge of our own health.
Absolutely! Real churros hot off a cart (either in Latin America or Spain) are an entirely different experience!
Very interesting. I suppose that, throughout history, populations have been adapted to their environments - and then have had the intrusion of an outside influence that has either disrupted what they had or has introduced some new thing that drove out the old.
I would imagine that within a certain number of generations they adapt, are diluted by intermarriage with a new group, or eventually disappear as an identifiable group.
Rice. Beans. Tortillas, wheat flour and corn. CARBS, carbs, and more carbs.
True only of the over-populated farming areas, mainly Meso-America but also possibly including the Andean region.
North America, for instance, was lightly enough populated that there was plenty of access to animal protein from game.
Prior to arrival of Europeans, Meso-Americans survived mainly on corn and beans, mostly corn. The wealthy no doubt had more animal protein in their diets.
Outside Meso-America it’s likely wild game provided a balanced diet, even for tribes that were largely agricultural.
Of course, these observations are based on what the first Europeans to explore an area found. Most of the Americas was greatly depopulated, 75% to 90% or more, during the 1500s by waves of disease rolling out from the areas of contact with Europeans. Most of the Indians killed by the depopulation never saw a European.
But this is pure data, and no particular agenda is being served. That is, here's a particular genetic association, and it may help elucidate some issues in diabetes next year or 5 years from now.
The only thing 'big pharma' cares about is the product they are currently selling or what will launch next year. This study has nothing to do with the pharmaceutical industry.
But I do not understand your minimizing genomic data...it is one part of the equation. Epigenetics, toxins, foods, sunlight, air, etc., are other parts.
I hope you had a great Christmas and wish you a wonderful new year.
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