On 8/18/02 9:11 PM, "Robert Harley" <harley@argote.ch> wrote:
>
> Another theory is that Europe was a rural backyard until the Renaissance,
> certainly when compared to big urban centres like Constantinople and Baghdad.
It is possible; hell if I know.
> I don't know the genetic studies of which you speak, but I know of one that
> is sort-of relevant: apparently men of Ashkenazi descent are susceptible
> to sickle-cell anemia and the probable reason is that the same genetic
> factor that causes that also protects women from tuberculosis (IIRC), which
> would have come in handy in central European towns at a time when the Jewish
> population was a lot more urbanised than average Joes.
I actually hear about this from people who are researchers in
pharma-biotech.  My authority isn't much better than "they say", but they
say that they've uncovered quite a few advantageous mutations in the ethnic
European genome that protect against quite a few different diseases,
mutations which are not found in various African, Asian, and other
populations that they also study.  Based on the genome research (as it
relates to infectious disease, which is among their primary interests) of
these various populations around the world, they and others are finding far
more protective mutations in the Caucasian/European genome than in the other
race populations they survey.  All the races and ethnic subgroups usually
have genetic mutations specific to them that provide protection against
specific infectious diseases.  What they are saying is that they are finding
far more in the European genome than in the others, and it isn't because
nobody is looking elsewhere.
You can find studies and results like this in the science wires.  For
example, one which I remember off the top of my head is the identified
genetic mutation that makes something like 1% of Caucasians immune to HIV-1,
and another 10-20% or so resistant to it.  Obviously, the protective
mutation occurred at some point in time prior to HIV-1 being introduced into
the European population.  What the researchers I've talked to seem to be
saying is that Europeans express a lot more of these types of gene
mutations, with similar protections from infectious disease, than other
populations.  Nobody really knows why for sure.  On the upside, identifying
genetic immunities to infectious disease helps the bio-techs come up with
pharmacological solutions for people that don't have immunity.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork