Potatoes may have given Indigenous Andeans a digestive superpower
The rise of the potato in the Andes appears to have left a lasting mark on human DNA. Indigenous Peruvians carry exceptionally high numbers of a starch-digestion gene, likely because people with more copies gained an evolutionary advantage once potatoes became a staple food. The change began thousands of years before European contact, providing unusually strong evidence that diet can shape human…
Indigenous Andean communities have long depended on potatoes as a staple food. A recent study led by researchers at UCLA and the University at Buffalo has discovered that this centuries-old reliance on potatoes may have given these people a unique evolutionary advantage. Indigenous people in Peru carry more copies of a gene related to starch digestion than any other population worldwide.
A new study found that natural selection began favoring individuals with a higher number of copies of the salivary amylase gene, AMY1, around the same time that potatoes became established in the Andean highlands, roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. People with more copies of AMY1 tend to produce more amylase enzyme in their saliva, allowing them to process starch more efficiently.
The researchers analyzed DNA samples from Peruvian Andean Quechua speakers and found that today's Indigenous Andeans carry an average of 10 AMY1 copies, compared to six in the Maya population. This genetic difference suggests that potato cultivation played a significant role in shaping human evolution.
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