WI: all humans were prone to Celiac Disease

Osakadave

Osakadave

What if "Mitochondrial Eve" or "Y-chromosomal Adam" carried a dominant gene similar to the one that causes Celiac disease, making all of us intolerant of wheat gluten, and rendering the now major Fertile Crescent grains functionally toxic?

Howwould humanity develop? Would Eurasia be crippled or would there be another suitable grain? And if there was, would that slow or hasten the development of Eurasia?

Assume that maize, quinoa, millet, sorghum, teff, buckwheat, rice, and non-cereal staples like yams, potatoes, or bananas are OK.
 

Claudius

Osakadave said:
What if "Mitochondrial Eve" or "Y-chromosomal Adam" carried a dominant gene similar to the one that causes Celiac disease, making all of us intolerant of wheat gluten, and rendering the now major Fertile Crescent grains functionally toxic?

Howwould humanity develop? Would Eurasia be crippled or would there be another suitable grain? And if there was, would that slow or hasten the development of Eurasia?

Assume that maize, quinoa, millet, sorghum, teff, buckwheat, rice, and non-cereal staples like yams, potatoes, or bananas are OK.
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History might not change all that much. Egypt had millet, Europe oats and buckwheat, East Asia had rice. Most areas of human settlement have native starchy roots. However, that being said how do we know that most ancient humans circa 25,000 BCE didn't have Celiac syndrome? A random mutation allowing metabolism of cereal grains would give such an evolutionary advantage that within 50 to 100 generations the non-tolerant population would be a tiny minority, as it in fact is. After all that's apperently what happened to people of European and African decent with regard to being able to digest milk as adults
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Osakadave said:
What if "Mitochondrial Eve" or "Y-chromosomal Adam" carried a dominant gene similar to the one that causes Celiac disease, making all of us intolerant of wheat gluten, and rendering the now major Fertile Crescent grains functionally toxic?

Howwould humanity develop? Would Eurasia be crippled or would there be another suitable grain? And if there was, would that slow or hasten the development of Eurasia?

Assume that maize, quinoa, millet, sorghum, teff, buckwheat, rice, and non-cereal staples like yams, potatoes, or bananas are OK.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't work. The genes are not carried on either the mitochondria nor the Y chromosome.

At its minimum (Toba eruption) the human population was some 70,000 (estimate, obviously). Positing that they ALL were celiac, which is what your PoD actually amounts to, is pretty much ASB.

You might be better, I suppose to posit that the 'pro-celiac' mutation had some other selective advantage and was predominant in hunter gatherer cultures. That might work.

Still... 1) note that celiac disease is not a clean inheritance issue - if your relatives have it, you are MORE likely to, but not guaranteed. Thus not everyone is likely to have the disease even if they had the genes for it.
2) once you get hunter-gatherers, or certainly hunter gardeners in the Middle east/Turkey/Iran area, there would be huge selection pressure against this gene. Even before agriculture, people harvested the wild grain, and it was a significant source of their nutrition. Certainly, they could have had a taboo against eating certain grasses, but in a famine year, a tribe that ate them would survive. Having 10% of your tribe die of celiac, say, is better than 50% of starvation.

Still, if the condition is common, even if declining, you might see agriculture start with buckwheat, for instance, instead of OTL's ?barley?. Rice, too, would likely spread west.

Having a few fewer crops would certainly make some difference to history, civilization might have developed a bit slower, but the MidEast had an embarrassment of riches in terms of domesticable grains. It might give the Americas a chance to catch up, but that's not certain at all.
 

MNP

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
Wouldn't work. The genes are not carried on either the mitochondria nor the Y chromosome.

At its minimum (Toba eruption) the human population was some 70,000 (estimate, obviously). Positing that they ALL were celiac, which is what your PoD actually amounts to, is pretty much ASB.

You might be better, I suppose to posit that the 'pro-celiac' mutation had some other selective advantage and was predominant in hunter gatherer cultures. That might work.

Still... 1) note that celiac disease is not a clean inheritance issue - if your relatives have it, you are MORE likely to, but not guaranteed. Thus not everyone is likely to have the disease even if they had the genes for it.
2) once you get hunter-gatherers, or certainly hunter gardeners in the Middle east/Turkey/Iran area, there would be huge selection pressure against this gene. Even before agriculture, people harvested the wild grain, and it was a significant source of their nutrition. Certainly, they could have had a taboo against eating certain grasses, but in a famine year, a tribe that ate them would survive. Having 10% of your tribe die of celiac, say, is better than 50% of starvation.

Still, if the condition is common, even if declining, you might see agriculture start with buckwheat, for instance, instead of OTL's ?barley?. Rice, too, would likely spread west.

Having a few fewer crops would certainly make some difference to history, civilization might have developed a bit slower, but the MidEast had an embarrassment of riches in terms of domesticable grains. It might give the Americas a chance to catch up, but that's not certain at all.
Click to expand...

70,000? Maybe as in 70,000 BC, but the number of humans was closer to 5-15,000. But the assumption is that everyone has it. That means it doesn't matter about the genes, since every human has it you are going to have it too.
 
iori

iori

hzn5pk said:
Would there be as much obesiety today if everyone was on a forced Adkins diet?
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Given that the modern obesity problem stems from;
A. People eating incredibly unhealthy food,
B. People eating far more than they need to,
C. People not doing anywhere near the amount of physical exercise required to burn off all but the required carb.

Then the answer is yes, obesity would still be a prevalent problem.
 
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