Another Reason to Have Sex! Intercourse Wipes Out Disease
-Causing Genetic Mutations Over Generations
- Researchers from the University of Montreal and Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre studied hundreds of people’s genetic code
- They found that disease-enabling mutations vanish from humans’ genes
- But unfortunately the process takes hundreds of generations
- Study could hint how humans become more at risk of developing diseases
Daily Mail UK, 19 Feb 2015
If you are looking for an excuse to have a more active love life, a new study may help.
Scientists believe that sex helps humans avoid disease by wiping out genetic mutations.
By analysing hundreds of people’s DNA, they found that disease-enabling mutations gradually vanish from human genes.
But Casanovas who have a lot of casual sex won’t benefit from a life free from illness, because the process takes hundreds of generations.
Scientists claim that sex helps humans avoid diseases by gradually wiping out genetic mutations. By analysing hundreds of people’s genetic code, they have found that disease-enabling mutations vanish from humans’ genes
For decades, scientists have debated the genetic advantages of sexual reproduction.
Now, researchers from the University of Montreal and the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre in Montreal, Canada, have just shown how humanity becomes less likely to develop or catch diseases the more we mix our genetic material together.
Previous research has revealed that as humans procreate, generation after generation, the exchange of genetic material between man and woman causes our species to evolve little by little.
The chromosomes of parents - threadlike structures made of nucleic acids and protein found in the nucleus of most living cells, which carry genetic information in the form of genes - recombine to create the chromosomes of their child, but they don’t mix together in a uniform way.
Scientists found that chromosomes (pictured) recombine frequently in some segments of the genome and less in others, which tend to carry a significantly greater proportion of genetic mutations that can cause disease. These segments accumulate more bad mutations until they are recombined
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THE RESERCH IN DEPTH
The researchers studied the sequenced genomes of hundreds of individuals from Canada's Cartagene genetic data repository and the multinational 1,000 Genomes Project.
They found that the proportion of mutations associated with disease was significantly higher in low recombining segments of genomes known as ‘coldspots’ relative to highly recombining regions.
They also discovered that the bad mutations in these coldspots were more damaging than the mutations in the highly recombining segments.
The team compared the finding across four populations: Africans, Asians, Europeans and Canadians of French descent.
Genomes from each of the genetic groups exhibited the behaviour they expected to varying degrees.
African individuals showed the smallest relative proportion of disease-associated mutations on their genome's coldspots, while Western Europeans showed the largest.
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