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There are a little more than 300 people in the world with the condition Laron dwarfism, a third of whom live in remote villages in Ecuador's southern Loja province.Sufferers of Laron - believed to be caused by inbreeding - lack a hormone called Insulin-like Growth Factor 1, or IGF1.
Research uncovered during an investigation by Channel 4's More4 News suggests this is the reason for their longevity and apparent immunity to cancer. In ordinary humans, too much of the hormone can lead a person to develop breast, prostate or bowel cancers at an early age.
I have not yet located the peer reviewed journal known as Channel 4 More4 News, but I'm still looking....
The story is here.
Who knows. There might be something to it. I would suggest two wet blanket explanations (in that there will be no cure for cancer). One, we don't really know these people don't really ever get cancer (or, apparently, other illnesses). Poorly documented remote populations like this are found now and then .... like the 120 year old Georgians who got so old eating Dannon Yogurt. The other wet blanket possibility is that there is a cost to being big ... a cost to growing large and/or a cost to being large ... that most humans pay through susceptibility to various ailments. Without the growth hormone, this cost is not being paid because that growth is not happening. So the wet blanket here is that you can be relatively disease free if you are born without a functioning gene for this growth hormone.
Which would not be a bad idea. From now on, everybody should be small. We would save a lot on resources all around.
Medicine & Health
Comments
My wet blanket comment: if this condition confers such a big advanage, why are there only ~300 people with it? Of course it's pretty rare to get cancer at an age that stops you reproducing, and sexual selection against sufferers might be another issue, but you'd expect an advantageous mutation to spread faster than that, surely?
Posted by: Charlotte | November 23, 2008 8:56 PM
Charlotte -
Bear in mind that even 100 generations ago, cancer would be a very rare condition (fewer environmental factors and much lower life expctancy), compared to the risk of violent death, especially for males. And I imagine that this coundition could make childbirth difficult for females..
Actually, looking at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laron_syndrome
It dosen't look exactly adventagous in any case.
Posted by: Andrew Dodds | November 24, 2008 6:39 AM