Unlike all other animals , humans have an inauspicious inclination to drop beat from gist flack that have no apparent cause . According to a new study in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , this inconvenient heart malfunction can all be blamed on a single gene , which became inactivate in human thanks to a mutation that occurred in one of our ancestor , between 2 and 3 million years ago .
Atherosclerosis is a form of cardiovascular disease characterized by the clogging of arteries , and is the lead causa of human death worldwide , accounting for around a third of all human death . In many causa , it is bring on by factor such as corpulency , hypertension , smoking , and roue cholesterol , although around 15 percent ofheart attacksdue to coronary artery disease occur with none of these jeopardy divisor .
These sudden , unexplained heart attacks are virtually non - existent in all other species , admit many of our close relative such as chimpanzees . And the reason , it seems , is all down to a exclusive sugar molecule called Neu5Gc that is plant on the open of cells in all animals apart from humans .
The gene that codes for Neu5Gc is called CMAH , and appears to have been deactivated in one of our former ancestors several million years ago . One possibility is that the elimination of Neu5Gc go on as anevolutionary reception to a particular form of malaria , which attached to the molecule in club to infect anthropoid .
tight - forward to today , and modern humans stay on immune to certain malaria filter out that chimps and other emulator are susceptible to , yet the event of this late research bring home just how high a damage we are having to pay for our electric resistance to the disease .
The bailiwick authors deactivated the CMAH gene in lab mouse , resulting in a deficiency of Neu5Gc . Compared to regular mice , these rodents were found to be 1.9 times more likely to suffer from atherosclerosis .
thing got even worse for the mutant black eye when they were put on a diet that was high inred center , resulting in a 2.4 - fold growth in atherosclerosis compared to normal mouse . This is because flushed meat contain mellow horizontal surface of Neu5Gc , which remind an resistant reply called xenosialitis , whereby antibodies that are designed to notice and demolish Neu5Gc kick - start a process of ignition , which appears to carry a heart plan of attack risk of exposure .
Overall , these effect seem to hint that eating too much red meat can significantly increase your chances ofcardiovascular disease , but that even super set , non - smoking vegetarians are genetically predispose to kicking the bucket for no apparent reason .
Bummer .
