2023-06-17 16:12:36
Around 30 percent of Norwegian men over the age of 60 have or suffer from Dupuytren’s disease, usually in the middle or ring finger. The figures in Denmark and Sweden are probably comparable. By contrast, in England, only 20 percent of men over 65 have the condition, and in the US that figure is around 10 percent for men over 50.
“Encountering Neanderthals has influenced who is affected,” says the paper’s lead author, evolutionary geneticist Hugo Zeberg.
Genetic data of 650,000 people
The study was conducted by collecting genetic data from 7,871 people with Dupuytren’s disease and 645,880 controls from the UK Biobank, FinnGen R7, and Michigan Genomics Initiative databases. The mountain of data was used to track down genetic variants that may be related to the condition.
Through extensive comparative analysis, the researchers identified 61 genetic variants associated with Viking disease, three of which came from Neanderthal genes.
This may not seem like much, but it’s still remarkable: Of all 61 generic variants, the variants that gave the second and third highest chance of the disease both originated from Neanderthals. This indicates that our extinct ancestors were highly susceptible to Dupuytren’s disease.
The researchers believe that Viking disease would not be nearly as common in humans from Northern Europe without contact and interbreeding with Neanderthal populations.
A 1999 Danish study also showed that heredity is clearly the most important factor in developing Dupuytren’s disease. Even then, the researchers estimated that 80 percent of the risk of the disease stems from heredity, with the remaining 20 percent due to other factors, such as alcohol and diabetes.
This may also help explain why the disease is still much more common in Northern Europe.
Between 1 and 4 percent of the human genome consists of DNA from our distant Neanderthal ancestors, and other studies in recent years have also shown how the Neanderthal legacy continues to influence our bodies.
For example, Neanderthal genes can make women more fertile, but also increase the risk of skin cancer and depression.
And now we also know that they were Neanderthals and not Vikings that gave Scandinavian men their stiff fingers.
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