A new study finds that the key genetic risk factors for Dupuytren's disease, a crippling hand disorder, are derived from Neanderthals.
Neanderthal genes may be one cause of the disorder nicknamed the"Viking disease," in which fingers become frozen in a bent position, a new study finds.
The rarity of Dupuytren's disease among Africans led Dr. Hugo Zeberg, an evolutionary geneticist at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, to wonder whether the genes tied to the disease came from Neanderthals, given that Africans have very limited Neanderthal ancestry.The researchers combined data from three large biobanks in the U.S., the U.K. and Finland comprising 7,871 cases and 645,880 controls in people of primarily European descent.
But the link between Dupuytren's disease and these Neanderthal gene variants is especially strong. Two of the genetic mutations were the second- and third-most strongly associated with the odds of having the disease, respectively."This is a very strong association," Zeberg told Live Science.
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