HIV immunity may stem from ancient smallpox

Gannett News Service via The Arizona Republic ^ | Feb. 20, 2004 12:00 AM | Randy Dotinga

[Paleo Conservative]

New research provides more evidence that the smallpox pandemics of the Middle Ages - not the plague - left generations of people with a rare genetic defect that protects them against infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The findings don't appear likely to help doctors develop better AIDS treatments. But if the mutations do turn out to provide immunity from smallpox along with AIDS, that knowledge may help bioterrorism prevention efforts, says study co-author Dr. Donald Mosier.

[Paleo Conservative]

Russian 'Vector' Lab Probes Secrets of Smallpox

[Judith Anne]

Thanks for posting this interesting article. I've also read that about 33% of people are immune to syphillis...

[longtermmemmory]

So those that lived proved immune. Rather harsh letting the weak just die.

[muawiyah]

Looks like the studies cut off when they get to the Swedes.

However, if you go further North, to the land of the Saami (which we call Lappland), it is quite noteworthy that during the plague of the 1300s virtually NO Saami died.

Folks further down the coast, the Norse, otherwise not different from the Swedes except for their propensity to keep Irish slaves, had a 90% death rate!

It's dollars to doughnuts that this genetically guided immunity parallels the inheritance of genes for Scandinavian porphyria, and dwarfism. I'd also guess that having an extra gene set for red receptors in the eyes, and not having any blue receptors at all show up to a greater than expected degree among these same folks.

The existence of such genes (and whatever immunities or illnesses they afford) in the broader European populations would reflect Saami incursions, hand in mitten, with their Viking associates.

Then there's the appearance of the court jesters, Saami hats on their heads, happy dust in their hands, and so terribly many of them dwarves! Makes me think of Pepin the Short, the last of his line.

[MHGinTN]

Last I read of this, it appeared more like 'natural selection' ... that those with a genetic resistance to the plague and pox transferred to their offspring the characteristic and then if a double marker appears (by mating between two with the single marker), HIV resistance is result.

[Paleo Conservative]

Ping!

[zygoat]

So, it wasn't a green monkey after all?

[JohnBovenmyer]

You don't need genetic differences or Irish slaves to explain this. Might not being further north and further inland (from the warming effects of the Gulf Stream) explain it - colder weather with fewer rats to carry the infected fleas. Also the population density would have been lower, making the plague less likely to spread.

[pepsionice]

While mosquitoes may be abundant up in the northern regions...rats aren't. You find the situation in the Alps with a very small rat population.

I think the thing to take home from this article...is that there were diseases out there...hundreds, if not thousands of years ago...which might have killed you, but if you survived...it left a note in your DNA to halt AIDS infection. Perhaps our logic today might be...its not a good thing to wipe out all diease because eventually a major disease will erupt which we should have been immune to...but we aren't because we never had measles in our lifetime.

This sounds like one of those Star Trek episodes where you could change time, but recreate totally new problems. You never truely fix a problem without causing another.

[muawiyah]

The Irish slaves were not the answer. Remember, it's the Norse in Norway that had the 90% death rate. The Norse in Sweden had a lower rate. But the Saami, who had no Irish slaves at all, and most likely didn't even know where Ireland was, had the lowest death rate of all ~ something on the order of 0%-10%.

Although the Norwegian North coast is warmer than latitude alone would dictate on account of the warming currents offshore, it isn't exactly "warm". A cold climate is necessarily dry due to the greater extent of ice and snow (which are, technically speaking, "dry").

A dry climate fosters the growth of plantlife that favors rats and other rodents.

It ain't called the Norwegian Rat for nothing (VOIR ASSI: Rattus norvegicus). Then there are the Lemmings, etc. The Northern coast certainly appears to have plenty of habitat for animals which can carry nasty diseases, e.g. black death! Take a couple of tens of thousands of years occupancy in such a place and it's possible resident human populations would develop immunities to these diseases (due to the extraordinarily high death rate they would suffer from intense contact).

Note: the usual explanation for why the Black Death didn't kill Saami is that they were barely out of the stone-age and were isolated from the primary trade routes in the rest of Europe. On the other hand these guys had a long history of cultural and trade contact with the Norse just to their South. Some have hypothesized that the Saami trade in "Soma" (crystalized form of the freeze dried active ingredient in amanita muscaria, an hallucinogenic mushroom) kept them in close contact with just about every ethnic group in a broad area from Europe to China. Even Ghenghis Khan sent a delegation to visit them.

[muawiyah]

The density of rats in the coastal plain that constitutes the Arctic or North coast of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia depends on the availability of food suitible for rats.

The density of rats in the Alps depends on the availability of food, and altitude. Same with the Arctic areas. You can estimate roden density by checking out the habits of the raptors that prey on them. An article on the net indicated that the Snowy Owl, primarily an Arctic bird, usually doesn't breed in areas above 600 ft. elevation EXCEPT IN NORWAY where they breed in mountains up to 3,000 ft! No doubt there are numerous voles, mice, rats, lemmings, rabbits, etc. available in those mountains, if not the Alps.

[balrog666]

Genetic diversity ping.

[VadeRetro]

So we already had "resistant strains" of humans before HIV even hit the human population. And humans are one of the least genetically diverse species of animals on the planet.

[balrog666]

Mutation bump then!

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Chris Talk]

Article at head has already been PC filtered to some degree...the immune percentage is well over 1%, and not limited to Swedes by any means.

IIRC, it also has some ties to the Rh negative blood characteristic.

[AdmSmith]

Some have hypothesized that the Saami trade in "Soma" (crystalized form of the freeze dried active ingredient in amanita muscaria, an hallucinogenic mushroom) kept them in close contact with just about every ethnic group in a broad area from Europe to China. Even Ghenghis Khan sent a delegation to visit them.

Why should Khan visit the Saami to get this mushroom? It is found all over the globe, probably at Ghenghis "garden" as well.

[CobaltBlue]

How do you know that HIV never "hit the human population" before? Remember, we're probably all "out of Africa" - where HIV is now pandemic. 40% infection rate among adults in Botswana.

After a plague there are two basic groups of survivors - those who never came in contact with it, and those who were immune to it.

[qam1]

Although the Norwegian North coast is warmer than latitude alone would dictate on account of the warming currents offshore, it isn't exactly "warm". A cold climate is necessarily dry due to the greater extent of ice and snow (which are, technically speaking, "dry").

A dry climate fosters the growth of plantlife that favors rats and other rodents.

It ain't called the Norwegian Rat for nothing (VOIR ASSI: Rattus norvegicus). Then there are the Lemmings, etc. The Northern coast certainly appears to have plenty of habitat for animals which can carry nasty diseases, e.g. black death! Take a couple of tens of thousands of years occupancy in such a place and it's possible resident human populations would develop immunities to these diseases (due to the extraordinarily high death rate they would suffer from intense contact).

Well there is no questions the rats could survive in the coolder climate but the fleas probably can't.

An example is in NY with the Deer tick, In southern NY (Catskills, Teconic, etc.) the woods are full of them however further North in the Adirondacks where it's really cold there is none or few even though there is just as many if not more deer. I've hiked with my dog in the Adirondacks 1000s of times and not once did either of us ever get a tick or flea. So even if the warm blooded rats could thrive in a cold climate that doesn't mean their cold blooded fleas could.

[jennyp]

How do you know that HIV never "hit the human population" before? Remember, we're probably all "out of Africa" - where HIV is now pandemic. 40% infection rate among adults in Botswana.

After a plague there are two basic groups of survivors - those who never came in contact with it, and those who were immune to it.

But then shouldn't the Botswanians & other Africans be more immune to AIDS? If AIDS is a very old recurring epidemic in Africa, then maybe they would have less immunity than the Northern Europeans, but still, to have 40% of your adult population infected & dying seems to say that there's no immunity there.

[jennyp]

New research provides more evidence that the smallpox pandemics of the Middle Ages - not the plague - left generations of people with a rare genetic defect that protects them against infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

What a strange way to put it!

[djf]

This is the Delta 32 mutation. It was profiled in a Nova called "Mystery of the Black Death". About ten percent of whites of european descent carry one copy of the gene. If you have one copy, it does confer some limited immunity.

[djf]

There is naturally in the tropics a non-genital form of syphilis. Children usually get it young, they get a fever and a rash, much like chicken pox, and after a week or so they're back to normal.

Once you get this form, you are forever immune to the deadly genital form.

[CobaltBlue]

Which would tend to suggest that present-day Botswanans are descended from people who were never exposed to HIV, or that, for some unknown reason, Africans with resistance to HIV died out for other reasons.

I've seen the data on European genetic resistance to HIV before - as I recall, Africans do not carry the genetic immunity to HIV found in Europeans.

I can't make out why there is speculation that immunity to HIV is somehow related to immunity to smallpox other than coincidence that both exist in the same populations. Given that smallpox has been eradicated, how can we know unless smallpox somehow becomes endemic/pandemic again?

I suppose they could test tissue from people carrying what is believed to be genetic immunity to HIV to see if they are immune to cowpox - if that's been tried I haven't seen it.

[muawiyah]

Amanita Muscaria is found all over the place, but many subspecies, for example those in the Western Hemisphere, fail to produce the halucinogenic chemicals. Strength varies in the Eastern Hemisphere as well.

You can buy this fungus to grow in your flower garden if you wish.

If you read up on the way this particular mushroom is ingested, you'd soon discover that the active ingredient is NOT metabolized in the human (or reindeer) systems, but is excreted by the kidneys into the urine.

You would have also discovered that upon initial ingestion there is yet another substance in this mushroom that gives you stomach cramps and other uncomfortable symptoms.

Accordingly, you find a shaman or witch-doctor to eat the mushroom. Only he need suffer the cramps. Then you collect his urine and pass the bottle. Supposedly it is possible to run this material through the kidneys of 5 individuals before the concentration is too thin to give the desired effect.

Better yet is to feed your reindeer vast quantities of amanita muscaria. They love the stuff. Some sources say that reindeer are so addicted to this mushroom that should a Saami unloosen his trousers to urinate, reindeer will come running! (No doubt that's an apocryphal story about how to catch a wild reindeer). On the other hand, National Geographic has a film of reindeer eating absolutely huge quantities of this mushroom with tremendous gusto. Later they are shown urinating into buckets!

Add 2 and 2 together and you can see that the water in frozen urine is going to end up sublimating away leaving behind a yellow or brown powder just choc full of the active ingredients!

It is not to be believed that the Saami didn't happen upon such a process, particularly since this particular mushroom has it's peak growth period sometime in August. Whatever would the shaman do in the other 11 months if they didn't have a year round source?

In Ghengis Khan's day the Saami may well have had the best stash available, and they could produce it in large volume. There were no secrets from the Mongols.

[VadeRetro]

How do you know that HIV never "hit the human population" before?

For one thing, the people with the resistance aren't the ones who've been living there in the last 100,000 years.

[CobaltBlue]

For one thing, the people with the resistance aren't the ones who've been living there in the last 100,000 years. "There"? I don't think they've figured out where HIV has been during the past 100,000 years. Given the ease with which it recombines, not sure they ever will.

[VadeRetro]

Do you have HIV and Ebola confused? They don't know where Ebola hangs out when it's not in humans. By comparison, it's pretty certain HIV is a mutation of a simian virus that jumped to humans in fairly recent times. The ancestral form is still around in monkeys and apes.

[CobaltBlue]

Viruses go back and forth between species. If pigs and chickens and humans have influenza, where did it come from? Did the pigs get it from the chickens? Did the chickens get it from the people? Who knows?

SARS infects people and civet cats. Did the cats get it from the people, or did the people get it from the cats? Who knows?

If a certain percentage of Europeans are immune to HIV - fairly high, actually, 15% of some European ethnic groups are heterozygous immune - that would tend to suggest that at some time in the past, HIV was endemic among Europeans or their ancestors. Contrary, if almost zero Africans are immune to HIV, that would tend to suggest that HIV was never endemic in Africa before.

In Africa, it is widely believed that HIV was introduced along with vaccines. I am not arguing that this is a fact, only that Africans have been living among chimpanzees for hundreds of thousands of years without coming down with HIV. But still, it's a better explanation to "why HIV now?" than most other explanations.

In the meantime - here's an article speculating that the reason Europeans are immune to HIV is plague, not smallpox.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,47586,00.html

[VadeRetro]

Viruses go back and forth between species. If pigs and chickens and humans have influenza, where did it come from? Did the pigs get it from the chickens? Did the chickens get it from the people? Who knows?

My guess: the species with the most strains has had it the longest. It will also be the most resistant.

[firebrand]

A guy I knew went to the CDC for all kinds of tests because he was sexually active all through the years of AIDS transmission and did not get it. They wanted to know why he was still alive and virus-free. He was of the right age and persuasion to be dead.

[VadeRetro]

SARS infects people and civet cats. Did the cats get it from the people, or did the people get it from the cats? Who knows?

It was very new in humans, in whom it has a nasty death rate. I don't know any numbers but suspect the civet cats notice it more as a bad cold.

[VadeRetro]

In Africa, it is widely believed that HIV was introduced along with vaccines.

That could be for all I know. At least, I've heard the theory. Can't remember exactly how that's supposed to have worked, though. Does it mean the humans had the HIV first? From where? Why didn't we notice before the late 70s?

[AdmSmith]

I buy your description if you replace the Uralic speaking Saami by Paleosiberian speaking Koryak and related groups in Kamchatka http://www.koryaks.net/.

here is a link to a description of the distribution of Sami
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/4/4-758.html

and here is a description from 1730 about the use of urine
http://entheogen.netfirms.com/articles/articles/mushrooms_and_religion.html :

Despite the problem of identiy of Soma, the knowledge that A. muscaria contains psychoactive toxins has been known to Western cultures at least since 1730. Colonel Johann von Strahlenberg, a Swedish military officer, who was a prisoner of war in Siberia for twelve years reported on the use of A. muscaria as an inebriant by the primitive tribesmen in that area.

Throughout the history of the various tribes of Siberian mushroom users, there had been no other intoxicant other than A. muscaria until the Russians introduced alcohol. Thus, not all cultures developed the knowledge of fermentation. The mushrooms are dried in the sun and later ingested alone, or as an extract in water or reindeer milk. Few people know about how the mushrooms are treated after their collection, but it seems that one method of ingestion is well known because of the unusual means by which the psychoactive toxin are introduced into the body.

During the ceremonial use of the A. muscaria, a ritualistic practice of urine-drinking had developed because the tribesmen learned that the psychoactive toxins involved passed through the metabolic system unaltered. This practice allowed the toxin to be used over and over again by drinking the urine of someone who had consumed the mushroom or who had drunk the urine of someone who had consumed the mushroom. In this matter, the ecstasy of few mushrooms could be extended for several days.

An early account, in 1809, by Georg Langsdorf, on the practice of urine drinking, among the Koryak tribe of Siberia, described the reason for this practicve. He wrote: The Russians who trade with them [Koryak], carry thither a kind of mushrooms, called, in the Russian Tongue, Muchumor, which they exchange for squirrels, fox, ermin, sable and other furs: Those who are rich among them, lay up large provisions of these mushrooms, for the winter. When they make a feast, they pour water upon some of these mushrooms, and boil them. They then drink the liquor, which intoxicate them; the poorer sort, who cannot afford to lay in a store of these mushrooms, post themselves, on these occasions, round the huts of the rich, and watch the opportunity of the guests coming down to make water; and then hold a wooden bowl to receive the urine, which they drink off greedily, as having still some virtune of the mushroom in it, and by this way they also get drunk.

Although partially true, Langsdorf?s tale tells only half the story. Because the purpose of drinking the extract of the mushroom was for religious reasons, it is thought that the sharing of the shaman's own intoxicating body fluid with his fellow tribesmen, and theirs among themselves, served to show unification of the celebrants with one another as well as with the sacred mushroom. Recall also that A. muscaria contains muscarine, as well as other toxins that cause profuse sweating and twitching.

When drinking the urine of individuals, who had consumed the mushroom, apparently the muscarine and other toxins are metabolized and the urine drinker is spared the unpleasant side effects. Thus, there is a practical reason for drinking the intoxicating urine.

[CobaltBlue]

There are probably other reasons to be resistant to HIV than CCR5-delta 32 deletion. It's very early days yet studying this disease, although tremendous progress has been made.

My husband was in pharmacology school when AIDS was first discovered and funding was being passed out to study it. Back then, it was widely believed that AIDS was limited to "the four H's" - Haitians, homosexuals, "hard" (intravenous) drug users, and hemophyliacs. And then there was the Duesberg theory, that HIV doesn't cause AIDS, that it's caused by certain lifestyles.

Indeed, the HIV virus causing AIDS in Africa is very different from the HIV virus in the US.

[Ichneumon]

And humans are one of the least genetically diverse species of animals on the planet.

Not that I'm aware of. Could you please provide a pointer to support for this?

[CobaltBlue]

Why didn't we notice before the late 70s?

Because dying of diarrhea and emaciation wasn't so remarkable in the past? Because it is a very slow disease to progress and people didn't use to live as long as they do now? Because globalization has spread it further and faster than ever before? Because in the past homosexuals didn't go flying all around the world, looking for action? Because in the past truck drivers didn't drive all over Africa sleeping with women and spreading the disease through every village? Because in the past, there were no needles for spreading diseases intravenously? Because, once we had good sanitation to prevent most diseases and cures for most of the diseases that were left, this one stuck out like a sore thumb? For that matter, what happened to SARS? Where did it come from? Where did it go?

[VadeRetro]

Not that I'm aware of. Could you please provide a pointer to support for this?

I think this first emerged in the human genome project. I've since seen the claims that:

1) There is more diversity between any two (even adjacent) chimp populations in Africa than there is between any two human populations at all, and

2) Modern human populations show a "recent" bottleneck in the 100 kya timeframe (not really a lot of generations, given human lifespans).

I realize that some few species (cheetahs come to mind) show the effects of even more recent bottlenecks but understand such to be quite the exception.

I'll see what I can search up on specifics.

[AdmSmith]

HIV virus causing AIDS in Africa is very different from the HIV virus in the US.

Well, there are some subtypes with minor differences.

[CobaltBlue]

Does this explain how Santa Claus flies? The reindeer eat amanita muscaria?

[VadeRetro]

Here and there you see the bottleneck pegged as recently as 40K years ago.

[CobaltBlue]

Different enough that a vaccine for one probably won't work on the others.

[VadeRetro]

Because dying of diarrhea and emaciation wasn't so remarkable in the past?

I'm sure that's true, but "pre-1978" takes in a lot of post-Renaissance medicine. The "recent African origin" hypothesis seems a best fit to me.

For that matter, what happened to SARS? Where did it come from? Where did it go?

It's still in the civet cats and those funny Chinese "exotic" meat markets. They found at least one other case in recent months.

[VadeRetro]

Less diverse than chimps.

I may be extrapolating wildly in claiming we're "one of the least diverse animal species" given that so few have been sequenced. Given the recent bottleneck in our history, however, I'd be surprised if we aren't pretty low on the scale.

[AdmSmith]

There are two genetically distinct types of HIV, HIV-1 and HIV-2. The two types are about 15-30% different at the DNA level. Both strains cause AIDS, although HIV-1 appears to be more virulent than HIV-2. There is some evidence that infection with HIV-2 may help protect against subsequent infection with the more virulent HIV-1. Epidemiologically, HIV-1 has spread around the world, while HIV-2 is mostly restricted to western Africa.
http://www.bioquest.org:16080/bedrock/problem_spaces/hiv/background.php

I am not updated on recent progress on vaccines, but some years ago the problem was to find a vaccine that would produce significant numbers of memory T lymphocytes, which are important in killing an infection. I do not think that the efficacy of a future vaccine would be different for the subtypes of HIV-1.

[AdmSmith]

I would add that since HIV-2 may help protect against subsequent infection with the more virulent HIV-1, then ther is a hope for a vaccine.

[muawiyah]

Actually, the reindeer are thought to fly by the USERS.

No one knows if reindeer really fly and the reindeer aren't talking, but all these folks, and their cirtters, are portrayed with red noses!

"Jingle Bell Rock, Jingle Bell Rock, dancing and prancing......" was written by Bobby Helms. He wrote a special arrangement for Johnny Cash. Bobby lived very near Mooresville, Indiana, the veritable "buckle" on the Church of the First Born "belt". These folks carry on the practices and traditions of their primitive Norwegian ancestors, right down to rejecting doctors!

Many conclusions may be drawn.

[CobaltBlue]

HIV-2 has a very different progression than HIV-1 - a prolonged asymptomatic period, and it appears to different receptors. It's widely reported to be "less virulent" - which may indicate that Africans have been exposed to it in the past and "developed immunity" - that is, the non-immune ones died out already. I don't think it conveys immunity to HIV-1.