title: Demeter's legacy: rapid changes to our genome imposed by diet.
abstract: The transition from foraging to farming allowed humans to produce several foods in abundance that were previously scarce. However, early farmers had to adapt to benefit fully from this energy-rich but initially detrimental food supply. Perry et al. recently showed that natural selection has increased the copy number of a gene encoding a starch-digesting enzyme in farming populations. This study illustrates that genetic adaptation to new diets has occurred in humans since the agricultural revolution.
authors.affiliation: Human Evolutionary Genetics, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) URA3012, Institut Pasteur, 25 rue Docteur Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France.
authors.forename: Etienne
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Patin
authors.forename: Lluís
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Quintana-Murci
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000681:Amylases / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004032:Diet; D018628:Gene Dosage; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D012641:Selection, Genetic
chemical_list: D000681:Amylases