Tuberculosis May Have Been In The Americas For Thousands Of Years
Senior Contributor
Evolutionary & behavioural ecologist, ornithologist & science writer
Feb 25, 2023,06:40pm EST
Scientists and historians originally thought Europeans brought TB to the Americas 500 years ago, but growing evidence indicates this bacterial pathogen was infecting American Indigenous Peoples for at least 3,000 years
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Ruins of an ancient city in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. (CC0, Public domain)PUBLIC DOMAIN
Archaeological evidence reveals that Indigenous Peoples have resided in the Andes Mountains for more than 12,000 years, in regions including modern-day Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Chile. As you might expect, these populations show physiological adaptations to the cold temperatures, low oxygen concentrations and intense ultraviolet radiation that they experienced at high altitudes. Now, a new study by an international team of researchers suggests that Indigenous populations also adapted to tuberculosis (TB) — thousands of years before Europeans arrived. But the prevalence of this bacterial pathogen and its powerful effects upon the communities living throughout the Andes before European contact was poorly known and thus, is quite surprising.
“Human-pathogen co-evolution is an understudied area that has a huge bearing on modern-day public health”, said the lead author of the new study, Sophie Joseph, a graduate student in anthropology at Emory University, in a press release. Ms Joseph specializes in studying how genetic risk factors and the surrounding environment, including sociocultural adaptations, may have influenced disease in past populations.
“Understanding how pathogens and humans have been linked and [are] affecting each other over time may give insights into novel treatments for any number of infectious diseases”, Ms Joseph explained.
Ms Joseph and her collaborators originally designed their genomic studies to better understand how the Indigenous Peoples of Ecuador adapted to living at high altitudes. Instead, the team was surprised when they uncovered evidence of natural selection on portions of the genome linked to the immune response to TB — and they were more surprised to find that this selection occurred thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, bearing “gifts” of dangerous infectious diseases, like TB.
More:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/grrlscientist/2023/02/25/tuberculosis-may-have-been-in-the-americas-for-thousands-of-years/
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