Did the Romans destroy Europe's HIV resistance?

[Beorn]

Did the Romans destroy Europe's HIV resistance?

THE hand of history has a very long reach. It appears that the Roman Empire left a legacy that may still affect modern Europe - those living within its conquered lands are more susceptible to HIV. It could explain why a gene that confers resistance to HIV varies in frequency across the continent.

The gene in question codes for a protein receptor called CCR5. The HIV virus binds to this receptor before entering cells. One gene variant, called CCR5-Delta32, has 32 DNA base pairs missing and produces a receptor that HIV cannot bind to, which prevents the virus from entering the cells. People with this variant have some resistance to HIV infection and also take longer to develop AIDS.

Generally, only people in Europe and western Asia carry the variant, and it becomes less and less frequent as you move south. For example, more than 15 per cent of people in some areas of northern Europe carry CCR5-Delta32, compared with fewer than 4 per cent of Greeks (see map). It is not clear why this is so, since the HIV pandemic - which began in the early 1980s - is too recent to have influenced the distribution of the variant.

However, the changing frequency of the variant reflects the changing boundary of the Roman Empire from 500 BC to AD 500, says Eric Faure at the University of Provence in Marseille, France. When Faure and colleague Manuela Royer-Carenzi investigated possible links between Roman colonisation and the frequency of the CCR5-Delta32 variant in nearly 19,000 DNA samples from across Europe, they found that the gene variant seemed to dwindle in regions conquered by the Romans (Infection, Genetics and Evolution, DOI: 10.1016/j.meegid.2008.08.007).

Alternative theories include the idea that the protective variant originated in Scandinavia, and was spread north and east by the Vikings. But the pattern of Viking migration does not match the current distribution of the variant. Another theory is that a major disease, such as plague or smallpox, created a selection pressure on the gene variant which increased its frequency. But its distribution does not match that of disease outbreaks, either.

So how did the Romans lower resistance across Europe? Some studies suggest that they and other southern Europeans had lower levels of CCR5-Delta32. But Faure does not think that the Romans spread the regular version of the gene into their colonies by breeding with indigenous people. "Gene flow between the two was extremely low," he says.

Instead, he reckons the Romans introduced a disease to which people carrying the CCR5-Delta32 variant were particularly susceptible. As the Romans moved north, this disease killed off people with the variant.

Faure notes that the Romans introduced cats and donkeys into Europe which may have carried pathogens that spread to humans.

What's more, the Romans inadvertently brought with them disease-carrying mosquitoes. Intriguingly, modern people with the CCR5-Delta32 variant are more susceptible to the mosquito-borne West Nile virus.

Source

[The Lawspeaker]

Hmmm a different theory regarding CCR5-Delta32 is that it formed up after the Black Death (Middle Ages).
The question I am asking myself is: have studies been carried out in Asia as well ? Since I remember that the pandemic started in China around 1334 and possibly earlier in Central Asia around 1330.
Are there traces of the same gen in let's say Chinese or Mongolians ? According to wikipedia it is not so commonly found in Asians.

Which would discredit the original theory. Now I know nothing about genes but could these genes be something typically Nordic European instead as this article suggests ?
The thought is interesting enough.

[Lenny]

Now I know nothing about genes but could these genes be something typically Nordic European instead as this article suggests ?
The thought is interesting enough.

That seems the only explanation that makes any sense.

The logical gymnastics of the Roman proposal:

So how did the Romans lower resistance across Europe? ...Faure...reckons the Romans introduced a disease to which people carrying the CCR5-Delta32 variant were particularly susceptible. As the Romans moved north, this disease killed off people with the variant.

What makes most sense was that it was a mutation a long time ago in northeastern Europe [Estonians supposedly have the highest rate of CCR5Delta32 of any ethnicity tested]. This mutation gave resistance to one of the worst killers of old times (Smallpox or BlackPlague makes most sense). So it was selected for wherever it was introduced in sufficient quantities. Attached to that resistance was also resistance to HIV.

It never spread far south for the same reason total-lactose-tolerance is not as common in Sicily and so on: Only a small percentage of southern genetics comes from Nordic/Nordish peoples.


Also interesting:

Abstract: We studied the frequency of the coreceptor CCR5 gene delta 32 mutation on 1,836 DNA samples originating from ten French regions. This mutation confers, in the homozygous state, resistance to HIV-1 infection. ...The mutation is statistically more frequent in the north (11.2%) than in the south (6.3%) of the country; this differentiation corresponds probably to a gradient of decreasing frequencies of the delta 32 mutation in Europe.
http://www.aegis.com/aidsline/1999/jan/A9910837.html

[EWtt]

What makes most sense was that it was a mutation a long time ago in northeastern Europe [Estonians supposedly have the highest rate of CCR5Delta32 of any ethnicity tested].

Ironically Estonia has one of the highest HIV rates in Europe... but it is well known the greatest risk group here are drug-injecting Russians.

[Äike]

Ironically Estonia has one of the highest HIV rates in Europe... but it is well known the greatest risk group here are drug-injecting Russians.

I did once read from somewhere that Russians make at least 90%-96% of the Estonian HIV population.

[Tabiti]

Bulgaria (pop. 7 671 000)

By the end of 2006, Bulgaria had reported a cumulative total of 689 HIV cases, including 180 diagnosed as AIDS and 64 deaths among AIDS cases. The annual number of newly reported HIV infections grew from 15-20 in the early 1990s to 91 in 2006, reaching the highest reported annual case-reporting incidence since the beginning of reporting.

Among the HIV cases reported from 1986 through 2006 that had a known mode of transmission (98%), 80% had been transmitted through heterosexual contact, 10% through injecting drug use, 7% through MSM, 2% through blood transfusion and 0.9% through vertical transmission.

In 2006 the transmission pattern shifted, with a higher proportion of HIV infection transmitted through injecting drugs (38%) and MSM (11%), and a decrease in heterosexual transmission (51%)

69% of Bulgaria's reported HIV cases are male. In 2004 the largest numbers of cases were registered in four major cities, Sofia (163), Bourgas (72), Varna (39) and Plovdiv (40)
An initial round of second-generation sentinel surveillance surveys among three risk groups - IDUs, sex workers (SWs) and the Roma people - was conducted in late 2004 in five major cities: Sofia (the capital), Varna, Bourgas, Plovdiv and Pleven. HIV prevalence in the three groups was 0.59% among IDUs, 0.73% among SWs and 0.30% among the Roma population. Although the data indicate that prevalence among these risk groups is still low, their vulnerability appears to be high. Surveillance data show that 63.9% of IDUs, 13.4% of the Roma and 8.7% of SWs are seropositive for hepatitis C, while the syphilis prevalence among the three groups is 2.4%, 6.7% and 21.5%, respectively.

280 HIV/AIDS patients received medical care for their condition in 2006. By the end of 2002, 86 people were on HAART treatment and as of December 2007, a total number of 221 received HAART at 3 facilities in Bulgaria. Of the patients on HAART, 70% were infected heterosexually, 21% MSM, 3% IDUs, 3% MTCT and 2% were prisoners. 4 out of the 5 IDUs receiving HAART also received opioid substitution therapy (methadone).

Provision of antiretroviral therapy is covered by the budget of the Ministry of Health and is provided free-of-charge for all patients, who meet the criteria of the European treatment guidelines.

134 facilities across Bulgaria provide HIV testing and testing is free of charge. According to national HIV testing policies, partner notification was not mandatory. Pregnant women are systematically offered an opt-in HIV test and additionally systematic provision of VCT is offered to most-at-risk groups including sex workers, prisoners, young Roma, MSM, IDUs etc. All tests were reported to have been preceded by informed consent. Around 109 668 people were tested for HIV in Bulgaria during 2006.

265 PLHIV had been tested for co-infection with hepatitis and among these 9 were co-infected with hepatitis B and 27 with hepatitis C. 35 people were diagnosed with TB/HIV co-infection by the end of 2006.

We don't have high HIV rates (16.4% in 2007 compared to over 30% in Western Europe), although once we were part of the Roman Empire

[The Lawspeaker]

We don't have high HIV rates (16.4% in 2007 compared to over 30% in Western Europe), although once we were part of the Roman Empire

We are a Western European country and we don't have a 30% percent infection rate here. That would be South Africa or Zimbabwe.

HIV/AIDS in Netherlands

Population, 2008	16,433,000
People living with HIV/AIDS, 2007	18,000
Women (aged 15+) with HIV/AIDS, 2007	4,900
Children with HIV/AIDS, 2007	nd
Adult HIV prevalence (%), 2007	0.2
AIDS deaths, 2007	<200
nd = No data
Source: Population Reference Bureau & UNAIDS

I need to look up the actual data (by racial background, age and sexual preference/drug use) but I have read somewhere that around half are homosexuals or drug users and around half of the infected is foreign.

I found some interesting data that seem to confirm my suspicions

[Tabiti]

AIDS is mostly in degenerate circles - homosexualists, immigrants, drug-users. I doubt most of them have Roman genes

[Lenny]

I need to look up the actual data (by racial background, age and sexual preference/drug use) but I have read somewhere that around half are homosexuals or drug users and around half of the infected is foreign.

They do keep detailed statistics on this in most western countries, though they're usually not easy to find. --

Estimated living male HIV carriers in the USA: ~1 million (of 102 million resident males age 15-64). Breakdown by race and manner-of-infection: [link]


Click link for full details. The long story short: Of the 1 million males infected, only 23,000 are white, heterosexual, non-drug-users.

And most of those 23,000 were infected by women who themselves had been infected by "bisexual" or needle-drug-using men.

[Frigga]

Here's something interesting. I will have to contact the woman who told me this. But, apparently, AIDS has not been linked to a single virus. If I am remembering her correctly, the medical establishment has just linked HIV with AIDS, and that one does not mean the other. I know, I'm not certain that I believe it either. But apparently she is a respected scientist, with other friends in the field. She told me that one of her friends who has been studying AIDS for many years told her that. I will have to get confirmation on this. I met her at a local fermentation festival, and she is a close friend of a woman I greatly respect, Jessica Prentice, who wrote Full Moon Feast. I will report back with more information as I get it.