Tibetans Evolution Allowing Them To Live At High Elevations
The Tibetan Highlands are at an altitude that cause some humans to become deathly ill if they are exposed to such conditions for a period of time. High-altitude lung and brain complications threaten and even kill mountaineers who scale the world’s tallest peaks. Others who find themselves at elevations significantly higher than where they normally live and work also can be stricken with the condition.
Tibetans on the other hand have adapted to such conditions, but not overnight. In a study published May 13 in Science Express, researchers from the University of Utah School of Medicine and Qinghai University Medical School in the People’s Republic of China report that thousands of years ago, Tibetan highlanders began to genetically adapt to prevent polycythemia (a process in which the body produces too many red blood cells in response to oxygen deprivation), as well as other health abnormalities such as swelling of the lungs and brain (edema) and hypertension of the lung vessels leading to eventual respiratory failure.
Tibetans have evolved genes that others living at similar elevations have not developed, according to Lynn B. Jorde, Ph.D., professor and chair of human genetics at the U of U School of Medicine and a senior author on the study. “For the first time, we have genes that help explain that adaptation,” Jorde said.
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Filed under: Biology by JMH
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