COPD, diabetes, heart disease, etc. that plague Native Americans are
not unique to Native Americans. It seems there are no
conditions/diseases are unique to Native Americans.
"Race is a blind alley, geneticists believe. ?No genetic markers are
unique to this race,? said Leslie Baier, who studies the Pimas? DNA
for the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
Diseases (NIDDK). She means that no unique genetic variants, or
alleles, have been found in Native American groups. Still, the demands
of surviving in a difficult environment may have influenced their
genes, making Indians innately susceptible to diabetes."
http://www.discover.com/issues/may-05/features/native-americas-alleles/
There is one gene however, that seems prominent in Athabascan speaking
Native Americans:
"The Navajo and Apache Indians are part of the Athabascan linguistic
group of Native Americans who migrated to the Southwestern United
States from Alaska and Canada between 700 and l500 A.D. In l864, the
Navajo Nation was reduced to an estimated 4,000 individuals living in
relatively isolated family units. Since then, they have become the
fastest-growing population in North America and currently number
approximately 200,000 people. The Navajo are an endogamous people
divided into 50 to 60 clans, with 2 to 4000 people per clan. The
Navajo society is matriarchal and matrilineal with clan identification
following maternal, or the mother's, lines. It is believed that all
Athabascan-speaking peoples originated in Asia and crossed into North
America via the Bering land mass.
We have identified two Athabascan-speaking families from the Dogrib
Indians, living in the Canadian Northwest Territories, who have had
three children with SCID. Both the immunologic and clinical phenotypes
in these children are identical to those in the Navajo and Apache. The
genetic closeness of Athabascans in the Southwestern United States
with those in the Northwest Territories, such as the Dogrib, has been
suggested by studies of a variety of genetic markers.
Athabascan SCID
While the incidence of some inherited diseases, such as cystic
fibrosis, is very low in the Navajo and Apache, there is a uniquely
high incidence of SCID. Athabascan SCID is inherited as an autosomal
recessive disease with an estimated incidence of one in 2,000 live
births and an estimated gene frequency of 2.1 percent. This is
compared to the estimated incidence of one in 500,000 for autosomal
recessive SCID among outbred populations and one in l0,000 for first
cousin marriages."
http://www.ucsfhealth.org/childrens/medical_services/cancer/bmt/moreinfo/research.html |
