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Elevated genetic risk for multiple sclerosis emerged in steppe pastoralist populations
"The last 10,000 years have seen some of the most extreme global changes in lifestyle, with the emergence of farming in some regions and pastoralism in others. While 5,000 years ago farmer ancestry predominated across Europe, a relatively diverged genetic ancestry arrived with the steppe migrations around this time....
this genetic ancestry contributes the most genetic risk for MS today and that these variants were the result of positive selection coinciding with the emergence of a pastoralist lifestyle on the Pontic-Caspian steppe and continued selection in the subsequent admixed populations in Europe. ...
the emergence of the pastoralist steppe lifestyle may have had an impact on immune responses as great as or greater than that of the emergence of farming during the Neolithic transition, which is commonly held to be the greatest lifestyle change in human history."
Source: www.nature.com
steppe emergence lifestyle genetic ancestry pastoralist farming selection
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