You may have heard that fish is good brain food. This is true; fish contain the

Question

You may have heard that fish is good brain food. This is true; fish contain the kinds of fatty acids that are the right length and level of saturation for use in the cell membranes of nerve cells. When you eat fish, your body can take the fatty acids in the fish and use them for your brain cell membranes, without needing to chemically modify their leng th or level of saturation. When you eat sources of food other than fish, your body needs to convert the fatty acids in those foods into fatty acids that are the right length and level of saturation so your brain can use them. The protein that is made by the FADS gene allows us to make good brain fats from the fats in food sources other than fish. There is a high level of diversity of alleles of the FADS gene in people whose families have lived for many generations in the area of East Africa from which our evolutionary ancestors 2 came. In contrast, there is much less diversity of alleles of the FADS gene in people whose families have lived for many generations in inland areas that lie a moderate distance away from this area in East Africa, and much farther away from sources of fish. How do anthropologists explain this?

Explanation / Answer

The differences in the allele frequencies of variants in the FADS gene cluster could be seen in African Americans and European Americans, which is also noted among the african people who lived near fish source and those who lived in the inland areas. The enhanced metabolism of MC-PUFA to LC-PUFAs is responsible for positive selection at the FADS gene cluster which was enhanced in the East African inhabitants with access to fish as food source.

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