• May 8, 2024

Have you ever wondered why Mexicans are more susceptible to diabetes and why do we sometimes get more aggressive than people from other parts of the world? There are two factors that intervene in this condition: the environment and the inheritance.

Diabetes is a disease that has existed since ancient times, but today it is more common to observe it. In the field of inheritance, the evolution is shorter, that is, its complications may appear 4 or 5 years after it was diagnosed, this unlike Caucasians who take up to 15 years.

Do we carry it in the DNA?

In the Faculty of Chemistry of the UNAM, Martha Menjívar Iraheta performs a Genoteca Indigenous that will be integrated by a DNA bank of the different indigenous groups that exist in our country.

The mestizo Mexican has 70% of genes of indigenous origin and diseases such as diabetes have a hereditary component, so this project aims to identify mutations or polymorphisms of various genes associated with diseases such as diabetes, which affects 18% of the Mexican population said.

There are 62 indigenous groups in Mexico integrated by around 15 million people, so the study of the Indigenous Genoteca is relevant because of the genetic susceptibility that Mexicans have to the disease, as well as identifying genetic polymorphisms associated with diseases such as obesity. and diabetes, the researcher explained.

In addition to carrying out the Indigenous Genoteca, the specialist will evaluate the genes of the indigenous people in order to make an early detection system for diabetes, as well as a molecular detection system for diabetes, obesity, mental illness and ancestry for Mexicans.

This is because "the traces of our genetic history, of the events that happened and selected our population are in our genetic material, they are circulating in our blood, in all our cells," he concluded. Martha Menjívar

Video Medicine: Scientists Shocking Discovery That Melanesians Carry DNA of Unknown Human Species (May 2024).