@article {6690, title = {Genetic diversity is a predictor of mortality in humans.}, journal = {BMC Genet}, volume = {15}, year = {2014}, month = {2014}, pages = {159}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: It has been well-established, both by population genetics theory and direct observation in many organisms, that increased genetic diversity provides a survival advantage. However, given the limitations of both sample size and genome-wide metrics, this hypothesis has not been comprehensively tested in human populations. Moreover, the presence of numerous segregating small effect alleles that influence traits that directly impact health directly raises the question as to whether global measures of genomic variation are themselves associated with human health and disease.

RESULTS: We performed a meta-analysis of 17 cohorts followed prospectively, with a combined sample size of 46,716 individuals, including a total of 15,234 deaths. We find a significant association between increased heterozygosity and survival (P = 0.03). We estimate that within a single population, every standard deviation of heterozygosity an individual has over the mean decreases that person{\textquoteright}s risk of death by 1.57\%.

CONCLUSIONS: This effect was consistent between European and African ancestry cohorts, men and women, and major causes of death (cancer and cardiovascular disease), demonstrating the broad positive impact of genomic diversity on human survival.

}, keywords = {Genome-Wide Association Study, Heterozygote, Humans, Mortality, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Proportional Hazards Models}, issn = {1471-2156}, doi = {10.1186/s12863-014-0159-7}, author = {Bihlmeyer, Nathan A and Brody, Jennifer A and Smith, Albert Vernon and Lunetta, Kathryn L and Nalls, Mike and Smith, Jennifer A and Tanaka, Toshiko and Davies, Gail and Yu, Lei and Mirza, Saira Saeed and Teumer, Alexander and Coresh, Josef and Pankow, James S and Franceschini, Nora and Scaria, Anish and Oshima, Junko and Psaty, Bruce M and Gudnason, Vilmundur and Eiriksdottir, Gudny and Harris, Tamara B and Li, Hanyue and Karasik, David and Kiel, Douglas P and Garcia, Melissa and Liu, Yongmei and Faul, Jessica D and Kardia, Sharon Lr and Zhao, Wei and Ferrucci, Luigi and Allerhand, Michael and Liewald, David C and Redmond, Paul and Starr, John M and De Jager, Philip L and Evans, Denis A and Direk, Nese and Ikram, Mohammed Arfan and Uitterlinden, Andre and Homuth, Georg and Lorbeer, Roberto and Grabe, Hans J and Launer, Lenore and Murabito, Joanne M and Singleton, Andrew B and Weir, David R and Bandinelli, Stefania and Deary, Ian J and Bennett, David A and Tiemeier, Henning and Kocher, Thomas and Lumley, Thomas and Arking, Dan E} }