New Genetic Evidence Reveals Ongoing Human Evolution

Quick Summary

• Indigenous peoples of the Bolivian highlands, including Uru, Aymara, and Quechua communities, have evolved genetic adaptations to counter environmental challenges such as low oxygen levels and toxic arsenic in water.
• Genetic variants around the gene AS3MT enable efficient liver metabolism of arsenic-a toxic substance associated with severe health risks like cancer and heart disease.
• Advances in DNA sequencing reveal that human evolution has not slowed but instead experienced notable changes even in recent millennia due to adaptation to new environments involving diet,diseases,toxins,and climates.
• Researchers found evidence of selective sweeps influencing traits like immunity, fat storage regulation, height variation via polygenic traits (traits controlled by multiple genes), skin pigmentation changes for vitamin D synthesis in agricultural societies, lactase persistence enabling milk digestion past childhood among Europeans and South Asians.
• Recent studies suggest episodic natural selection events during transitions like farming adoption increased vulnerability to autoimmune disorders but reduced susceptibility to certain infectious diseases.

Indian Opinion Analysis
The research underscores humanity’s remarkable adaptability through biological evolution-an observation that holds relevance for India amid its societal diversity. With regional variations shaped by diet (e.g., vegetarian prevalence), endemic diseases like malaria or tuberculosis historically influencing local populations’ immune systems depict wide generational-rich challenges unraveling both agriculture reliance ethnic minority copies centuries origin territories embracing village nature-scape-hybridity– together=gene-flow;