Dupuytren's disease, a disorder that affects a fibrous layer that lies under the skin of the palm of the hand, is said to have been bequeathed to us by the genes of Neanderthals, the same genes to which we, the inhabitants of Northern Europe, owe our skin and hair colour, our tendency to accumulate a potbelly, and our predisposition to diseases such as schizophrenia and Covid-19.
The correlation between the Neanderthal and this disorder, which causes the fingers of the hand to lock, was found in a study conducted in collaboration between a Swedish and a German institute, analysing data from over 600,000 individuals.
The 'Viking disease', so called because it affects 30% of men over 60 living in Northern Europe, proves once again the enormous importance of the Neanderthal for what we are today.
Dupuytren's disease, a disorder that affects a fibrous layer found under the skin of the palm of the hand, is said to have been bequeathed to us by the genes of Neanderthals, the same genes to which we, the inhabitants of northern Europe, owe our skin and hair colour, our tendency to accumulate a potbelly, and our predisposition to diseases such as schizophrenia and Covid-19.
The 'Viking disease', so called because it affects 30% of men over 60 living in Northern Europe, proves once again the enormous importance of the Neanderthal for what we are today. This disorder affects a fibrous layer located under the skin of the palm of the hand. In essence, it causes the fingers of the hand to lock in a bent position.
The study was led by the Swedish Karolinska Institute and the German Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and published in the journal 'Molecular Biology and Evolution'. The two leaders of the research were Hugo Zeberg of Karolinska, together with Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute, who will win the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2022.
By James Heilman, MD - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10379
The researchers analysed the DNA of more than 7,000 affected individuals and more than 645,000 healthy ones. The origin of these subjects was predominantly the United States, the United Kingdom and Finland. They were thus able to identify as many as 61 genetic risk factors for this disorder: three of the most important of these were inherited from Neanderthals.
Homo neanderthalensis, commonly referred to as Neanderthal man, is a hominid closely related to Homo sapiens who lived in the Middle Palaeolithic period, between 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. He takes his name from the Neander Valley (Neandertal in German) near Düsseldorf in Germany, where the first fossil remains were found.