Amish people live longer due to mutation in blood clotting gene
By Dr Ananya Mandal, MD,November 19, 2017
Scientists have stumbled upon a genetic mutation that is found among the Indiana Amish community people that leads to impaired or defective blood clotting but predicts a longer life span for them. The study was published this week in Science Advances.
The first case was of a girl from the community almost two decades ago who bled to a life threatening situation from a routine scalp surgery. She was studied extensively and it was found that she has some specific genetic mutations that made her different. She had two copies of a mutant gene which made her incapable of making the right proteins that are necessary for clotting of blood. However a new study found that those in the Amish community who had only a single copy of this mutant gene could not only increase their life span by up to 10 years but also protect them from diabetes.
According to says cardiologist William Fay of the University of Missouri in Columbia, one of the researchers on this team, this is a remarkable finding. He explained that while this genetic mutation is not a new finding, its association with protection from diabetes is an “important piece of evidence” that connects genes with aging. Genes, he explained, could be the next targets of therapy to prevent age related disease and damage. He noted that even now Japanese researchers are working on a gene therapy that could alter the genes in a unique manner that could protect individuals from kidney disease, diabetes and obesity.
Lead author cardiologist Douglas Vaughan of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, said that they had to go back to the original girl who had the two copies of the mutations to understand the role of the gene in other functions than blood clotting. A total of 176 persons and the original woman from the Amish community conseted to be a part of this study he said.
More:
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20171119/Amish-people-live-longer-due-to-mutation-in-blood-clotting-gene.aspx
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