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Evolutionary gene loss may explain why only humans are prone to heart attack
- olliej 7y agoI like how the headlines explicitly states humans. For yet another study in ... mice. There are other options like dogs and pigs which are much better models for human biology, so if you really want to make a claim about subtle effects of human genetics you need to be as close to a human model as possible. This is entirely ignoring the someone generous leap they make that one single gene mutation is responsible for an increased rate of heart disease. It also doesn’t touch on what the benefits for that gene were (to spread through the gene pool completely it must have some benefit that outweighs the cost)
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- rjzotti 7y agoFurther down in the study it says that removing the gene likely occurred because it made humans more resistant to malaria, and somehow it also enhanced the ability to run long distances.
- AlexCoventry 7y agoIf this withstands scrutiny a chimpanzee study can't be far off, though.
- buntsai 7y agoNah. Primate studies are too expensive, impractical and ethically difficult to justify. Think about the number of subjects you would need for statistical significance ...
- pier25 7y agoAt this point this is only a hypothesis. This is clear when they say "may help explain", "may have resulted", and "believe".
- segfaultbuserr 7y ago#JustSayInMice! https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice * Hyped-up science is a problem. One clever Twitter account is pushing back. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/15/18679138/nutrition-health-science-mice-news https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/15/18679138/nutrit... Just for some background for those who weren't aware what is the OP all about. But to be fair, I think this article is actually well-written and doesn't contain sensationalized framing.
- fifnir 7y agoOh another couch biologist,there's one in every thread.. thanks for all the observations, we really hadn't thought of any of that, you single-handedly salvaged modern biological research !!
- dang 7y agoHey, could you please not break the site guidelines like this? Internet forums are certainly full of comments that don't necessarily know about things. If you know more, the thing to do is to share some of what you know so we all can learn—not degrade the quality of the site even further. If you'd take the spirit of this site more to heart, we'd appreciate it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fifnir 7y agoFair enough. But this happens in every biologically relevant discussion.. Every time results are reported on mice, someone will criticize that it wasn't done on humans, as if biologists are complete ignoramuses and not intimately familiar with the strengths and limitations of their own science. If an engineer presented a model of a bridge and someone jumped in to say "buh, but you didn't ACTUALLY BUILD the bridge so this is worthless", people would rightly tell him off, wouldn't they? Why is this low-effort criticism of biology allowed ?
- dang 7y agoIt's allowed in the sense that people are allowed to be wrong and/or ignorant because that's what most of us are on most topics. We can't stop that any more than King Canute could stop the waves. The important question is, what's the best way to handle it if we want to have an internet forum that doesn't suck? Experience teaches that the answer is: the patient supply of correct information by people who do know about a topic. I don't mean to minimize how infuriating it is to be surrounded by a flood of ignorance and wrongness. But that's the situation you're in if you're knowledgeable. Railing against it only makes things worse. Being able to contain the annoyance, so that it doesn't drive your communication, is a hard prereq for doing something good about it.
- crabLouse 7y agoSince the driver of the selection against the related gene seems to be malaria, I wonder if this is linked to prevalence of body hair on human ancestors. Bug bites on hairless skin probably had something to do with dying of disease, and the early homonids that had the gene seem to be the ones hit the hardest. We also see evolutionary markers related to bed bugs, head lice and body lice. Maybe mosquitos and genes linked to a possible malaria pandemic offer more clues.
- fragmede 7y agoMalaria is a fascinating one, with the prevalence of sickle cell anemia and G6PD blood deficiency in some populations with high exposure. Both of those cause health issues but they both confer some level of resistance to malaria.
- baddox 7y agoIsn’t the recessive gene for cystic fibrosis also linked to malaria resistance? Edit: apparently it might be linked to a resistance to cholera.
- xythum 7y agoI was taught (undergraduate genetics) that it was TB, but I see the relevant Wikipedia page also lists cholera, typhoid and diarrhea shrug
- hirenj 7y agoAs far as I remember, malaria comes in via glycosaminoglycans, and not our sialylated glycans. It could very well be related to our symbiosis with bacteria however. Edit: I forgot the earlier work demonstrating Plasmodium specificity to NeuGc, so yeah maybe malaria!
- watertom 7y agoLinus Pauling figured out almost 30 years ago why humans are prone to heart attacks, and not only did he discover why, he also has a mechanism by which to reverse existing heart disease and prevent heart attacks and strokes. The Pharmaceutical industry ridiculed his solution and tried to discredit his work, claiming that he had become crazy in his old age. Personally I have much more faith in Dr. Pauling than I do in just about any other person that ever lived, except perhaps Fred Rogers. I follow Dr. Pauling's solution and I have for almost 20 years. https://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/the-unified-theory-of-human-cardiovascular-disease/ https://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/15/the-unified-the...
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoI hate to attack your deity but... https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html https://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.h... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5000725/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5000725/ “Overall, current research suggests that vitamin C deficiency is associated with a higher risk of mortality from CVD and that vitamin C may slightly improve endothelial function and lipid profiles in some groups, especially those with low plasma vitamin C levels. However, the current literature provides little support for the widespread use of vitamin C supplementation to reduce CVD risk or mortality.”
- watertom 7y agoDr. Pauling theory does focus on L-ascorbic acid, but his unified theory relies on L-Lysine as well. Not one published study that claims to refute Dr. Pauling's unified theory ever used the amount of L-ascorbic acid he recommended, or included L-lysine as part of the study. Dr. Pauling's unified theory has specific guideline amounts, as MG per KG of body weight for both L-ascorbic acid and L-lysine. It would be trivial to actually test Dr. Pauling's theory, but so far everyone has felt the need to alter his recommendations and then test their alteration and then claim victory. It's easy to knock down a straw man, and even easier to revel in the success.
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- dilawar 7y agoI wonder if a gone lost hundreds of years ago is somehow _responsible_, then why heart attack related death mostly occured in last 50 years?
- deanstag 7y agoIt could be that they were not diagnosed as heart attacks before that. edit: And also maybe general life style differences regarding availability and richness of food, exercise, shorter life spans etc.
- svachalek 7y agoIn the 19th century, a heart attack may have been recorded as "old age", "sudden death", "apoplexy", "stomach cramps", "spasms", or a lot of other things. As long there weren't any suspicious circumstances I don't think they usually looked into it that closely.
- taurath 7y agoI mean, this was when amputation and leeches was the pinnacle of medicinal triage. Life expectancy hit 49 in 1900 - for most of the 1800s it was below 40, a fact that still blows my mind today.
- raverbashing 7y agoLife expectancy values were skewed a lot by infant mortality. This doesn't mean your average person died at 50. Life expectancy @ 5y.o. (not sure about the exact age, but > 1y.o. is fine) is a better value to compare
- akuji1993 7y agoSo people had less time to "wear the heart out", they moved significantly more and their diet probably was better then our average as long as they could eat regularly.
- aszantu 7y ago'nother article against red meat xD meatheals.com if anyone suffers from an incurable disease, see if you can find your condition there
- jedberg 7y agoIf this turns out to be true, I wonder if this is something CRISPR could fix...
- zyang 7y agoPets such as rabbits, hamsters, dogs are also prone to heart attacks. I think it has more to do with sedentary lifestyle. Unfortunately for most pets, it's not by choice.
- LinuxBender 7y agoAnd foods. Pets don't get the choice to eat loads of sugar and processed carbohydrates. It's usually some form of meats or vegetables depending if carnivore or herbivore.
- hirenj 7y agoWe could probably edit in a working copy, but I wouldn't be so quick to do that: Sialic acids are all over our cells, and we don't understand what the difference is between the two sialic acid types in terms of impact on molecular environment. One plus side to losing this gene is our ability to do long distance running.
- jldugger 7y agoSo the benefit of this gene is... we die of heart attacks unless we go jogging regularly? Where do I sign up to get it back?
- bitwize 7y agoOn the other hand, cats -- for example -- are highly prone to kidney failure in a way that humans are not.
- glastra 7y agoCats, being obligate carnivores and lacking a proper mechanism for extracting energy out of fatty acids (e.g. ketogenesis in humans), have actually very efficient kidneys to dispose of all the nitrogen coming from their protein-exclusive metabolism. Domestic cats are at risk, but that is more a result of domestication and improper feeding (carbohydrate) than evolution or genetics. Unless I am missing something, of course! Care to elaborate?
- johnkpaul 7y agoWhenever I see comments blaming carbohydrate intake for large swaths of problems I find it challenging because I agree and then feel that I am seen as a heretic or extremely gullible. Do you ever feel that way?
- DennisP 7y agoI doubt anyone would think you a heretic for believing that about pure carnivores like cats.
- glastra 7y agoI guess he was extrapolating and referring to the idea that carbohydrate consumption is the root cause of most, if not all, modern diseases. An idea held by many, including me.
- smolder 7y agoTo say even most modern disease has to do with carb intake ignores all the diseases that clearly aren't even diet related. You could probably get away with saying most diet related diseases are related to carb intake. I'd say that's a stretch, too, though I do suspect, as you do, that the type and quantity of carbs people eat is underappreciated as a factor in many illnesses.
- Pimpus 7y agoSo now we're including "survival of the unfittest" as part of evolutionary theory? Sorry, this makes zero sense. If humans really did evolve, then we hit the lottery - several times.
- mclightning 7y agoWhere did you guys suddenly appear out of nowhere on HN? On a programmer forum, skeptical of evolution? This is the second time I see skepticism about evolution is brought up on HN comments. Science literacy of the community definitely went down.
- ben_w 7y agoFitness doesn’t mean what you think it means. As others have noted on this post, this mutation confers some resistance to malaria. When the options are “malaria with high probability from birth onwards” or “heart attack after multiple decades with high probability if nothing else kills you first”, this is fitness. Besides which, if humans didn’t evolve, you need to explain why the creator didn’t use a better mechanism to prevent us from getting malaria. For example: not creating malaria when they created us.
- glastra 7y ago> Atherosclerosis -- the clogging of arteries with fatty deposits What a way to start an article in a website with "science" in its name. Atheroma is an accumulation of white blood cells. White. Blood. Cells. Not fat. "Meat bad, saturated fat bad, eat your necessarily fortified grains and heart-healthy industrially extracted seed oils."
- hirenj 7y ago-oma is a suffix that means tumour. E.g. lymphoma. -sclerosis is a hardening. E.g arthrosclerosis for a hardening of joints.
- glastra 7y agoI fail to see what this has to do with my comment. The hardening in atherosclerosis is caused directly and exclusively by atheroma.
- cageface 7y agoAtherosclerosis refers to the buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on your artery walls (plaque), which can restrict blood flow. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/arteriosclerosis-atherosclerosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20350569 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/arteriosclero... An atheroma, or atheromatous plaque ("plaque"), is an abnormal accumulation of material in the inner layer of the wall of an artery; it is present in the arteries of most adults.[1] The material consists of mostly macrophage cells,[2][3] or debris, containing lipids, calcium and a variable amount of fibrous connective tissue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheroma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheroma
- glastra 7y agoPardon my confusion: is this comment for or against the parent? "Plaque" and "atheroma" are synonyms in the context of cardiovascular health. Also, both quotes together go to show the ongoing misconception. Nowhere in the first quote are macrophages and other WBCs mentioned (but they are in the second, luckily). I guess this is what happens when you use quotes from different sources, too.
- Rickvs 7y agoPerhaps we evolved a heart overclocking ability. Sometimes we just push the heart too hard.
- pvaldes 7y agoIt seems that this guys never tried to catch a shrew.
- akvadrako 7y agoI've seen a mouse die in a "humane" trap after being carried a couple blocks – I always understood that was from a heart attack. It seems to happen with birds too – stress them out a bit, then dead. So in what way are "only humans" prone? Are these not heart attacks?
- EdwardDiego 7y agoProbably time to agree on what "heart attack" means. My Dad's heart stopped and he was kept alive by 45 minutes of CPR by burly firefighters - did he have a heart attack? Nope. His heart's pacemaker cells went on the fritz, but it wasn't a myocardial infarction. A "heart attack" is a myocardial infarction, but many other bad things can happen to your heart.
- raxxorrax 7y agoI have the feeling this has much more to do with our self inflicted lifestyle than genetic factors. Maybe no other animal is just that stupid.
- klodolph 7y ago> Maybe no other animal is just that stupid. Have you ever owned a cat or dog? My experience is that a percentage of them will overeat unless constantly monitored, eat things that are outright dangerous, etc. What is it that makes humans the stupid ones, here?
- chosenbreed37 7y agoI wonder whether or not we should distinguish between domesticated animals and wild ones
- masklinn 7y agoIt would be an interesting (if difficult) experiment but from what I know wild animals will absolutely gorge themselves if they can. The difference is that in the wild, this is tends to be quickly followed by a resource crash from a normal cycle (e.g. winter crash after summer glut) and / or population explosion. I don't know that any organism has had evolutionary-scale periods over which to psychologically integrate an access to essentially unlimited (in time and quantity both) resources.
- humanrebar 7y agoI have seen wild geese eat too much seed from bird feeders and practically lose the ability to fly. I suspect the correcting mechanism for that is generally predation.
- Retra 7y agoLabradors usually have a genetic disorder that causes them to gorge themselves, so they are highly prone to obesity. They are also very popular breeds in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labrador_Retriever#Inherited_disorders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labrador_Retriever#Inherited_d...
- cc439 7y agoInteresting, I was always under the impression that chipmunks were susceptible to heart attacks. I can't remember where I read it and I can't find a current source but you are apparently not supposed to harass chipmunks because they can experience stress induced heart attacks when threatened/chased. I've also seen potential evidence for this when my cat chased one around a parking lot only for it to collapse after sprinting around for a solid minute. It was immobile, looked short of breath and eventually died at some point between when I brought my cat in and the next morning.
- CamperBob2 7y agoRabbits, too. The whole premise behind this headline seems bogus.
- DennisP 7y agoThe headline seems bogus but the article says that "naturally occurring coronary heart attacks due to atherosclerosis are virtually non-existent in other mammals." Atherosclerosis is the cause of only "one-third of deaths worldwide due to cardiovascular disease" so other causes could still apply to other mammals. For example, "chimp heart attacks were due to an as-yet unexplained scarring of the heart muscle." Of course we can give rabbits atherosclerosis by giving them high cholesterol from a diet they don't eat in the wild. But in humans, "in roughly 15 percent of first-time cardiovascular disease events (CVD) due to atherosclerosis, none of these [risk] factors apply," where risk factors include "blood cholesterol, physical inactivity, age, hypertension, obesity and smoking." So the study explores a possible reason for that.
- fpoling 7y agoElephants that live in savannas in Africa are prone to atherosclerosis, while those living in forest areas are not. [1] discusses that it can be due to food. In savanna elephants are forced to feed on grains and dry grass, while in forest they feed on leaves, which is probably more natural. [1] Staffan Lindeberg. Food and Western Disease: Health and Nutrition from an Evolutionary Perspective
- also-see 7y agoAnother post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20509263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20509263