Could the mutation that causes Huntington’s disease actually be making people healthier in their younger years? That’s the theory being proposed to explain why the Huntington’s disease (HD) gene is increasing in the population – despite eventually rendering many of its carriers unable to control their movement, speech or swallowing, and eventually killing them. If affected individuals are healthier than unaffected counterparts during their reproductive years, they may produce more offspring (Medical Hypotheses, DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2007.02.046).
The theory, put forward by Benjamin Eskenazi and colleagues at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, may lay to rest a long-standing hypothesis that people with…
