> Maybe this variant increases survival rates with an otherwise zinc deficient diet, by essentially allocating more zinc to basic survival needs and less zinc t

> Maybe this variant increases survival rates with an otherwise zinc deficient diet, by essentially allocating more zinc to basic survival needs and less zinc to fluff like mental wellbeing? That's interesting idea, it sounds plausible but I'm not an expert in this area. I'd like to add that in the article paper they talk about "hard selective sweeps" for this gene variant, which implies that the variant had especially strong influence on survival. AFAIK these selective sweeps often bring on some secondary traits which are a "side product" (spandrel) of the primary trait.