Creationism in Crisis
'Viking Disease' was Inherited From Neanderthals As Eurasian Humans Evolved by Hybridization
'Viking Disease' was Inherited From Neanderthals As Eurasian Humans Evolved by Hybridization
Dupuytren's contracture
As scientists continue to use the Theory of Evolution to explain the observable facts, oblivious to creationist claims that they are about to abandon it in favour of the childish creationist superstition involving an unevidenced magic supernatural magician, a research team led by Hugo Zeberg from Karolinska Institutet and Nobel laureate, Svante Pääbo from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, have shown that Dupuytren's contracture is probably caused by genes inherited from Neanderthals.
Dupuytren's contracture, also called 'Viking disease' because it is relatively common in North European men with over 30% of males over the age of 60 developing the condition, is a painless but debilitating condition in which one or more fingers is bent across the palm and locked in position.
The researchers were investigating genetic risk factors for the condition and analysed the DNA of a large cohort from UK, Finland and USA so could compare the DNA of 7,871 sufferers and 645,880 healthy controls. Three of the 61 risk factors were in genes inherited from Neanderthals and two of these were the second and third most important risk factors.
The team have published their findings in an open access paper in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
A news release from Karolinska Institutet explains the research:
The Viking disease can be due to gene variants inherited from Neanderthals
Many men in northern Europe over the age of 60 suffer from the so-called Viking disease, which means that the fingers lock in a bent position. Now researchers at Karolinska Institutet, together with colleagues, have used data from over 7,000 affected individuals to look for genetic risk factors for the disease. The findings, which have been published in Molecular Biology and Evolution, show that three of the strongest risk factors are inherited from Neanderthals.An artistic illustration of a Neanderthal and a sketch of ring finger locked in a bent position as seen in Dupuytren's disease, colloquially known as the 'Viking disease'Photo: Hugo Zeberg
Up to 30 percent of men in northern Europe over 60 suffer from a condition called Dupuytren's contracture. The condition is sometimes called the Viking disease because it mainly affects individuals with northern European ancestry. The disease is significantly more common in men than women and usually begins as a lump in the palm of the hand that grows and causes one or more fingers to lock in a bent position. The condition is usually not painful, but the nodules may sometimes be tender to pressure.
The researchers in the study, led by Hugo Zeberg from Karolinska Institutet and Svante Pääbo from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, set out to investigate whether genetic variants inherited from Neanderthals are involved in the disease.
Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia until about 40,000 years ago, when they were replaced by modern humans. However before Neanderthals disappeared, they mixed with modern humans. As a result, between one and two percent of the genomes of people with roots outside of Africa come from Neanderthals. “Since Dupuytren's contracture is rarely seen in individuals of African descent, we wondered whether gene variants from Neanderthals can partly explain why people outside of Africa are affected”, says Hugo Zeberg, assistant professor at the department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Karolinska Institutet.
Three genetic risk factors from NeanderthalsThis is a case where the meeting with Neanderthals has affected who suffers from illness, although we should not exaggerate the connection between Neanderthals and Vikings.
Hugo Zeberg, senior author
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology
Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
And the Department of Evolutionary Genetics
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
The researchers used data from three large clinical cohorts in the US, UK, and Finland, which allowed them to compare the genomes of 7,871 sufferers and 645,880 healthy controls. They identified 61 genetic risk factors for Dupuytren's contracture. The researchers found that three of these were inherited from Neanderthals, and these included the second and third most important risk factors.
The study is further evidence that the intermingling between Neanderthals and our ancestors has important consequences for the prevalence of some diseases, particularly among certain groups.
Abstract. There is plenty for creationists to ignore or abuse the scientists for here:
Dupuytren's disease is characterized by fingers becoming permanently bent in a flexed position. Whereas people of African ancestry are rarely afflicted by Dupuytren's disease, up to ∼30% of men over 60 years suffer from this condition in northern Europe. Here, we meta-analyze 3 biobanks comprising 7,871 cases and 645,880 controls and find 61 genome-wide significant variants associated with Dupuytren's disease. We show that 3 of the 61 loci harbor alleles of Neandertal origin, including the second and third most strongly associated ones (P = 6.4 × 10−132 and P = 9.2 × 10−69, respectively). For the most strongly associated Neandertal variant, we identify EPDR1 as the causal gene. Dupuytren's disease is an example of how admixture with Neandertals has shaped regional differences in disease prevalence.
Ågren, Richard; Patil, Snehal; Zhou, Xiang; FinnGen. ; Sahlholm, Kristoffer; Pääbo, Svante; Zeberg, Hugo
Major Genetic Risk Factors for Dupuytren's Disease Are Inherited From Neandertals
Molecular Biology and Evolution, 40(6); msad130. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msad130
Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by Oxford University Press. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
- The ingressions of Neanderthal genes in the Eurasian Homo sapiens genome happened 60-40,000 years ago, i.e., 7-10 times longer ago than Earth has existed, according to creationists.
- If we are all descended from the incestuous family of genocidal flood survivors, where did these genes come from?
- If the answer to that is the usual 'common features = common designer", then are the diseases caused by these genes, the intended outcome from that design?
- There is no doubt expressed by the scientists that these genes are the result of an evolutionary process involving horizontal gene transfer from a closely related species, and no evidence that the current Modern Synthesis of evolutionary biology is under serious threat.
- With this evidence of multiple original species for modern humans, how does that equate to the myth of a single founder couple with no ancestors when there was not even a single founder species?
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