Posted on 03/12/2005 1:45:17 PM PST by Woliff
Europe's plagues helped halt AIDS
Russell Jenkins
March 12, 2005
LIFE was nasty, brutish and short when waves of plague swept across Europe right up to the 18th century.
Scientific research now suggests, however, that the terrible suffering of those generations means a significant proportion of modern Europeans are now resistant to AIDS.
A study by two British biologists published in the Journal of Medical Genetics suggests about 10per cent of Europeans have this protection as a direct result of the series of plagues that swept across the continent from the Middle Ages onwards.
Biologists have known for some time that people carrying a genetic mutation known as CCR5-delta32 remain free of the deadly disease. The mutation prevents the human immunodeficiency virus from entering the cells of the immune system.
It has always been puzzling that the strains of HIV that have swept through Africa have had so much less effect in Europe.
The new theory suggests the CCR5 mutation, which prevents HIV from entering the cells of the immune system, was a by-product of the European plagues. The proportion of people carrying the natural resistance rises dramatically in Europe and particularly in Scandinavia, where the figure of those with resistance is 14-15per cent.
But the mutation is relatively low in countries bordering the Mediterranean and not found at all in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia or among native Americans.
Christopher Duncan and Susan Scott of the University of Liverpool's School of Biological Sciences suggest the natural protection from HIV can be attributed to the history of the plague. They have put forward a matrix showing how the frequency of genetic mutation rises with each stage of plague outbreak from the Black Death in 1347 to the Great Plague of London (1665-66) and beyond to the Plague of Copenhagen more than half a century later.
Using a computer model, they demonstrate how the pressure of natural selection increases the number of those carrying the resistance from about one in 20,000 when plague first devastated Europe during the mid-14th century, to one in 10 300 years later.
Professor Duncan and Dr Scott, authors of The Return of the Black Death, published last year, insist these plagues were not bubonic, but epidemics of viral haemorrhagic fever that used the CCR5 receptor as the "entry port" into the immune system.
These lethal haemorrhagic fevers - whose modern version is Ebola fever - are believed to have occurred as far back as antiquity.
They were recorded in the Nile Valley from 1500 BC, Mesopotamia (700-450BC), Athens (430BC), the plague of Justinian (AD 541-700) and the plagues of the early Islamic empire (AD 627-744).
If the plague struck a village and killed half the population, those with the natural resistance would become a higher proportion of the survivors.
Professor Duncan dismisses theories that resistance to AIDS can be attributed to smallpox or bubonic plague. Bubonic plague is a bacterial disease, not a virus, and cannot be blocked by the mutation.
He is less sure that his work will have any practical impact on medical research and is not hopeful the genetic mutation can be reproduced artificially to create protection.
The Times
I have been looking for this info for a couple of years. I was in the local paper, Houston Chronicle, and I misplaced it. But I remembered the theme of the article. My family is of European blood. Thank you for finding this and posting it. I think they have been doing a study of this for years.
ping
Note to Doctor - Can you give the patient another dose of the Anti-AIDS serum. It's in the bottle labeled 'Bubonic Plague'. Thanks.
My father never practiced dangerous lifestyle. Monogamous, didn't smoke, drink, use drugs, run around, etc. But he did get one blood transfusion before they started AIDS testing blood while in hospital after a heart attack and surgery. He worried the rest of his life about it. But maybe he carried the mentioned mutated gene. His ancestors came from France and England.
Ebola is prevalent in Africa, but it doesn't seem to be helping much there.
Plague was a bacteria so I'm confused as to how it would help agains a virus.
Darn Bubonic plague was racist! It wanted to get rid of the black man.!!
Still, on the Subject of Genes
Now hear this ... It was recently reported that survivors of the Black
Death that ravaged Europe in the 14th century may have given their
descendants an unexpected gift - a genetic mutation that protects them
from the AIDS virus.
So suggest US researches in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The
study's authors say today, nearly one person of European descent in 10
has that mutation. Technically, this trait affects a gene for an element
well known by AIDS specialists: the receptor CCR5.
Found near the surface of immune system cells, called macrophages, the
receptor allows the HIV virus to attach to the cell and infect it.
Scientists have known for some time that people who carry two copies of
these mutant genes - traits inherited from both parents - are virtually
immune to the HIV virus.
Those who have one copy of the mutation - known as CCR5 delta 32 - can
be infected by the virus but remain healthier longer than those without
the trait.
Specialists established that this mutation occurred mostly in whites,
especially those from northern Europe. It is less common among Southern
and Eastern Europeans and Central Asians, and does not exist in Africans
and people from Eastern Asia.
Now you all know as much about the subject as I do ... now we know why
some people sleep around and don't get full blown AIDS (they may be
carriers!) while others get it from just one unfortunate mating choice.
No fair! Then again ... karma could be at play here, no? SIGH ...
http://meinah.tripod.com/FFT/genes.html
I think all this is a bunch of hooey. The plauge is bacterial and aids is a virus - I am not aware of bacterial resistance providing antiviral immunization.
Beware single scientific studies being accepted as law.
Better watch these guys who think there are differences in genes between the race. You never know where they might take it.
that is what I was thinking too.....bacterial plagues vs AIDs virus......I don't get the connection unless the genetic proponent somehow mutated enough to be resistant to both...........sounds fishy to me....
Viral haemorrhagic fevers, including Ebola and, far more commonly, Dengue Fever are found currently in Africa and South / Southeast Asia, yet AIDS has a horrible impact in these areas? Do they not use the same receptor????
I would tend to disagree. In the middle ages, populations were not mobile...People were born, lived and died, within a few miles...there was haredly any travel between villages. That's how the plague ended..it burned itself out...When everyone in a village was dead, it died off..
Yet, the entry ports of the plague into Continental Europe were Mediterranean and Adriatic ports and the spread of the disease was from South to North from these ports.
Most people stayed put in the Middle Ages, true, but there were always small groups who traveled: tinkers, pilgrims, merchants, mendicant friars, messengers, and so forth. It was enough to spread the plague.
The evidence suggests that when regions were attacked by recurrences of the plague, mortality decreased.
The same was true of syphillis, which killed people rapidly in the earliest outbreaks around 1492 but became less deadly, or at least much slower to act, as time went on.
Here is the theory.
I think there's some debate about exactly what pathogen caused the plague, whether it was a bacteria or a virus or whatever. It's my understanding that the debate hasn't really been settled.
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