Cornell University scientists found “tantalizing evidence” that generations of a vegetarian diet led to a mutation in the human genome that may make people “more susceptible to inflammation, and by association, increase risk of heart disease and colon cancer,” says the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.
The discovery provides the first evolutionary detective work that traces a higher frequency of a particular mutation to a primarily vegetarian population in Pune, India, compared to meat-eating Kansans, says the journal. The mutation is an insertion or deletion of a sequence of DNA that regulates the expression of two genes, FADS1 and FADS2, that are key to making long-chain polyunsaturated fats. Among the fats is arachidonic acid, that is a culprit among people at risk of heart disease, colon cancer and many other inflammation-related conditions.
“The insertion mutation may be favored in populations subsisting primarily on vegetarian diets and possibly populations having limited access to diets rich in polyunsaturated fats, especially fatty fish,” according to the journal. The scientists who led the study, Tom Brenna, Kumar Kothapalli, and Alon Keinan, said they intend more study of the mutations and the FADS1 and FADS2 genes as a marker of disease risk.