I wrote somewhat inaccurately about one of the parallels between kuru, as Stone Age Herbalist describes it, and sickle cell disease. Disease occurs in homozygous individuals in both cases, but only the hypothesized kuru requires an environmental exposure to develop. However, apparently those with sickle cell disease are more vulnerable t…
I wrote somewhat inaccurately about one of the parallels between kuru, as Stone Age Herbalist describes it, and sickle cell disease. Disease occurs in homozygous individuals in both cases, but only the hypothesized kuru requires an environmental exposure to develop. However, apparently those with sickle cell disease are more vulnerable to malaria than those heterozygous individuals with sickle cell trait. Another parallel is that heterozygous individuals in both cases have some protection against disease when exposed to a particular environmental factor (malarial parasites in the case of sickle cell disease).
I wrote somewhat inaccurately about one of the parallels between kuru, as Stone Age Herbalist describes it, and sickle cell disease. Disease occurs in homozygous individuals in both cases, but only the hypothesized kuru requires an environmental exposure to develop. However, apparently those with sickle cell disease are more vulnerable to malaria than those heterozygous individuals with sickle cell trait. Another parallel is that heterozygous individuals in both cases have some protection against disease when exposed to a particular environmental factor (malarial parasites in the case of sickle cell disease).