2006-12-19 14:06:12 · 8 answers · asked by The Voice Inside Your Head 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Biology
I heard that Tay-Sachs is a disease that affects Jews. Why is that?
2006-12-19 14:10:44 · update #1
Tay-Sachs does not affect all Jews. It affects Jews of Eastern European descent also called Ashkenazi. The vast majority of Jews in North America are of Eastern European Jewish origin.
Tay-Sachs also affects some Cajuns in Lousiana. Some have speculated that some Jews assimilated into the culture there and established the gene, but no one really knows.
2006-12-19 14:16:04 · answer #1 · answered by Otis F 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
It's called founder affect when a mutation arises in a limited population and at one time, the jewish population was more restricted geologically than it is today. While Tay-Sachs doesn't only affect the Ashkenazi jewish population, there are certain mutations that are tied back to that population. We see this in other diseases, like the Ashkenazi mutations that occur in BRCA1 that cause an increased risk in breast cancer.
I'm not really into to population genetics (boring) but if you do a search on founder affect you should get some more information about the why's of the Tay Sachs founder affect.
2006-12-19 23:48:45 · answer #2 · answered by molecular-mom 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It doesn't, but that's prolly not what you're looking for. I put a link at the bottom to the wikipedia article on the disease. There's a bit about french-canadians and cajuns getting hit by the disease as well.
Apparently the person to carries the tay-sachs gene but doesn't actually have the disease is very resistant to typhoid I believe. Typhoid, of course, being caused by water contaminated by sewerage. Bad plumbing and dirty water were hallmarks of the ghettos that the Jews were forced into. This resistance is much like the resistance that Sickle Cell anemia carriers (A so called Black disease) have to Maleria. It's an evolutionary development gone wrong.
2006-12-19 22:16:27 · answer #3 · answered by anecdoteman1 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It affects those with Ashenazi genes. Ashkenazi are frequently Jewish of eastern and central European descent.
There are other small ingrown populations where it occurs at a higher frequency than the bigger population: the French-Canadian communities of Quebec, the Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania, and the Cajun population of Louisiana.
2006-12-19 22:18:32 · answer #4 · answered by hawkthree 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's not the people of the Jewish religion, it's the people whose ancestors came from where most of the first Jewish people came from. Tay-Sachs originated among them.
2006-12-19 22:09:22 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It does not only effect jews. It just is more common there due to natural selection. Due to new technology, it is less likley to be as fatal anywhere. I guess the last place it hit before a medical breakthrough was the jewish popultion
2006-12-19 22:12:37 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
It doesn't only attack Jews, it is just most common among the Jewish community.
It is a genetic thing. Just like Sickle-cell anemia among Blacks.
2006-12-19 22:08:20 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
the info you have is incorrect.
2006-12-19 22:13:49 · answer #8 · answered by Amy 2 · 1⤊ 1⤋