Ancient DNA helps trace multiple sclerosis origins in European descendants

Five thousand years ago, sheep and cattle herders migrated westward from Asia to Europe, bringing with them their pastoral way of life — and higher genetic risk for multiple sclerosis, according to a new study of DNA from thousands of ancient and present-day people.

The finding answers a long-standing conundrum in medical science: Why is this debilitating autoimmune disease most common in people from northern Europe? The research also recasts the modern-day illness, suggesting it is rooted in an evolutionary trade-off.

Multiple sclerosis is a neurological disease in which a person’s normally protective immune system turns on their nervous system. Thousands of years ago, when people began living in proximity to livestock and their germs, variants of genes related to immunity began to give people an evolutionary edge, possibly because they helped bolster defenses against an onslaught of infections and parasites carried by their animals.

But genes don’t do just one thing. In a prehistoric world filled with infectious perils, a potent immune response could mean the difference between life and death. Thousands of years later, those same gene variants also happen to increase their descendants’ risk of the haywire immune response in MS.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2024/01/10/ancient-dna-multiple-sclerosis-european-ancestry/

Gift article, no paywall. Very interesting,