Jewish Genetic Diseases - Why?

flowerpower

Fri, Dec 14 2018, 11:41 am

I don’t think we have more genetic diseases than the general population. I took genetic testing a couple of months ago. The counselor said that every group has their own diseases that they are carriers for. I know the African Americans are big carriers of sick cell and the counselor told me that the Asian population deals with something that no other group deals with( don’t remember the name)- baby can’t live past birth with it. We intermarry each other so it’s stronger. As opposed to the general population where the mom alone is a mix of 8 different groups. Then comes the dad which is the same...

amother

Lawngreen

Fri, Dec 14 2018, 11:54 am

flowerpower wrote:

I don’t think we have more genetic diseases than the general population. I took genetic testing a couple of months ago. The counselor said that every group has their own diseases that they are carriers for. I know the African Americans are big carriers of sick cell and the counselor told me that the Asian population deals with something that no other group deals with( don’t remember the name)- baby can’t live past birth with it. We intermarry each other so it’s stronger. As opposed to the general population where the mom along is a mix of 8 different groups. Then comes the dad which is the same...

We don't have more genetic diseases than other groups, but a higher rate of occurrences of those diseases that are found in our population.

Most groups developed their own individual genetic diseases, because the populations were fairly static, and hardly moved around much. But since the industrial revolution, things have changed and people shift locations frequently. The Jews have remained a tight knit group and don't shift locations easily; furthermore, we only look to marry Jews, and we restrict that further to those that are similar to us. That is what makes the diseases that affect us more prevalent than other places. We also have large families, which contribute to it as well.

This is a concept that doesn't only apply to us Jews, it applies to anyone who does the same. A tribal group in Africa, a caste system in India, - all are equally affected.

And, as another poster pointed out, there is the genetic bottleneck effect. We Jews suffered so much, that most of us Ashkenazim now descend from only a couple of hundred people or so. That wiped out a good portion of our ancestral genes, and when we intermarry, all we do is continuously shuffle the same genes around and around again.

All this increases our odds exponentially.

Raisin

Sat, Dec 15 2018, 5:47 pm

Pakistanis in the uk (maybe other places too) have a very high rate of diseases but its mostly because they marry first cousins. https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-46558932 Once people stop marrying cousins (like the siblings of the woman in above article) they probably stop having sick children.

I do know some frum people who think nothing of marrying second or third cousins. But at the same time ashkenazim are marrying sefardim, gerim (or children of gerim), or people with non Jewish fathers so our gene pool is definitely becoming more diverse.

amother

Pearl

Sat, Dec 15 2018, 11:56 pm

I would say with our research we are preventing the sick children. Dor yeshorim created testing so you see so many that could be by our group if we didn't test. It is to our advantage the research. Now suppose any ethnic group that marry only each others whether it's tribes in Africa or middle Eastern tribes....theyre in third world countries....no testing....no research....no data...no prevention.....so how can you compare grps if there is no info out there on these groups...
So who says by us is bigger chance...we just have the data, the resources & the ways to prevent bh....

Another point with more children there are more numbers affected.....if every Jewish family has/had 10 children....if one of them is affected then you say every family is affected....in general population where people don't have 10 only 1 or 2...the disease is more dispersed.

Another point.....by frum people, many don't test for genetic diseases while preg...bc they won't do anything anyway or if they do know child not well won't abort....so more sick children will be born. In other societies where abortion is not an issue....as soon as they find out that it's a sick fetus....they dispose of it....so how can you truly know how many sick children would be been born if not abortion. Also if two partners in general society would find out that together they're carriers for sick kids.....they sometimes divorce...or use donor eggs/sperm or do ivf to isolate only the good ones....which all these things don't happen so fast by frum couple....bc of many diff halachos....

dankbar

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 2:01 am

I've heard that the reason we suffer so many things today like genetic mutations, infertility & irregular cycles is because by Holocaust they played around with our genes. Any inmate who ended up in hospital was free for all...who knows what they did there to them? It is know that Mengele yemach shmoi....experimented on twins....on sick kids....

amother

Periwinkle

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 2:04 am

dankbar wrote:

What on earth are you talking about?!??

It wasn't enough they killed millions, you think they used technology that didn't yet exist to "play around with our genes"??!!?!

DrMom

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 2:07 am

Many ethnic groups have a tendency toward specific diseases.

- Africans have a tendency toward sickle-cell anemia
- many Native Americans have a tendency toward diabetes and lactose deficiency
- people of Asian ethnicities have a tendency toward hepatitus B

Why do people think that Jewish groups should be any different? Any time a genetic defect or mutation occurs in a highly endogamous population, it has a good chance of surviving in the gene pool.

gande

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 2:37 am

My child has a genetic disease that is NOT being tested for in for yesharim or other panels. It was originally thought to be ashkenazi but once they put it on the whole exoming panel, they have found it in middle eastern, white and Spanish children. I asked my genetic counselor about it and she said that some gened are "easy to be broken". So eventually most populations have some carriers of it. There are more affected in the ashkenazi population since we have more kids and the gene pool is smaller.

Rappel

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 3:32 am

imasoftov wrote:

That source does not address marriage between cousins so I'm curious why you mention it.

Halacha seems to recognize the presence of familial disorders:

The gene for hemophilia is recessive, and carried on the X- chromosome. So a woman who has that chromosome is a carrier, while a man is a hemophiliac.

Halacha states that if a woman has had 2-3 sons whom died from Brit milah, or if 2-3 sisters each had a son whom died from Brit milah, then any more boys born in that family are exempt from Brit milah.

The halacha applies only for the sons of said women. If the father of such a boy were to remarry and have a son with a different mother, there is no concern in halacha that the child would die.

Ergo, the Amoraim knew that diseases which affect only men can be carried by the women of the family. (In this case, probably hemophilia.) They didn't call it hemophilia at the time - the poskim talk about families with thin blood - but the idea of an inherited disorder is there.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=.....nM1cT

imasoftov

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 4:56 am

Rappel wrote:

A claim was made that people should have known better than to marry first cousins. This source does not support that.

amother

Aubergine

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 5:15 am

imasoftov wrote:

It's easy to criticize them with what we know today, but did our ancestors who interbred know this?

Someone asked a question and there is an answer. Decisions were made and they have a consequence. No need for crying: bad things happen to good people
If people married their cousin so the money should stay in the family, or so they don't have to marry someone with inferior yichus, so they don't have to marry someone who is a bit chassidish or a yekkish.. well you reap what you sow.

And yes maybe they didn't know like we do now BUT everyone knew that marrying first cousins isn't good because royals did that and people were talking about how that made them insane. My mother told me that her great grandmother told her not to marry someone from her town but from another town so the blood would be mixed a bit.

And even if they were totally unaware.. if a girl has unprotected s-ex and gets pregnant and says: well I didn't know that's how babies are made" ... She's still pregnant, isn't she? Actions have consequences no matter if you knew about it or not

PinkFridge

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 8:33 am

dankbar wrote:

Descendants of non-survivors are also having these mutations.

imasoftov

Sun, Dec 16 2018, 6:42 pm

amother wrote:

Thanks, I did know that science works even if the people it's happening to don't know the science.