Scientific American Magazine: Disease for Darwinism

January 17, 2008, 12:00 pm by Scientific American: Health

Over the past 35 years, scientists have made several curious discoveries about Huntington’s disease. First, individuals with the neurological disorder are less likely than others to suffer from cancer; second, they tend to have more children than average--about 1.24 children for every one child born to unaffected siblings. Although no one yet knows what is behind these seemingly unconnected findings, a group at Tufts University has proposed that they are linked--and that one of the proteins implicated in Huntington’s may, ironically, provide patients with subtle health benefits.

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