Demeter's legacy: rapid changes to our genome imposed by diet.
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.
Patin
Etienne
E
Human Evolutionary Genetics, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) URA3012, Institut Pasteur, 25 rue Docteur Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France.
Quintana-Murci
Lluís
L
D000383:Agriculture; D000681:Amylases / Q000235:genetics*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004032:Diet; D018628:Gene Dosage; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D012641:Selection, Genetic
D000681:Amylases