New Srain of 'High-Runner' Rats Uniquely Resistant to Disease - All Disease!
It's common knowledge that the more physically fit you are the less likely you are to be affected by some diseases. A study published in The FASEB Journal of November of 2010 applies this concept to animals. It explains the difficulty in testing animals for the risk of getting a disease because, like humans, some are just less likely to get a disease. It is also difficult because this theory can be turned around, you can also say that some people are more susceptible to disease than normal due to no other reason than the fact that they are not as physically fit as the average member of the species.
A study was done to explore this concept further using rats. Very in-shape rats, called high-runners, were bred with high-runners and low-runners, not so in shape rats, were bred with low-runners. This was done until there were eleven generations; it was to hopefully make a distinct gap in the genes between the two groups of runners. It was conluded that the low-runners were at much more of a risk for disease. When analyzed, it became evident that there were seven specific functionally related groups of genes linking running traits with disease risk traits. This model can be applied to other species when determining risk of disease in future studies.
That's interesting how they bred rats for eleven generations for runners. That means some hereditary is involved from physical fitness of parents for offspring's immune system to have less of a chance of getting a disease. Most people would say its per individual's personal fitness not parents to determine your ability or decrease disease infection. What they kind of proved is that you can breed runners for generations so if your parents were runners and so on, that may affect Olympic results if you were genetically bred to compete. Also it may be a way to find linkage with gene functional groups of humans if they bred to have a better immune system from a healthier family and possibly use that for future medical advantages.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even think about the fact that this is evidence to the idea that you could potentially breed runners. It would be interesting to look at the physical shape of parents and grandparents (and so on) of Olympic runners. It's a little crazy to believe that humans could be bred just like dogs and other species. However, to breed people to be more healthy would be a very controversial topic. It would be amazing to produce super healthy individuals but what about the not so in shape people who wouldn't be breeding with the very healthy individual. Unhealthy individuals would breed with other unhealthy individuals and it would be unfortunate to end up with a population of humans who are extremely unhealthy, just like the population of slow-runner rats. Very interesting thoughts!
ReplyDeleteI heard of a slightly similar experiment done with fruit flies. The flies were placed in a system of boxes where they were able to fly up, down, or just straight across. After breeding the flies that always flew down for several generations, all the offspring would automatically fly down. Its incredible what can be genetically determined.
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