Evolutionary gene loss may explain why only humans are prone to heart attack

Since the driver of the selection against the related gene seems to be malaria, I wonder if this is linked to prevalence of body hair on human ancestors.<p>Bug bites on hairless skin probably had something to do with dying of disease, and the early homonids that had the gene seem to be the ones hit the hardest.<p>We also see evolutionary markers related to bed bugs, head lice and body lice. Maybe mosquitos and genes linked to a possible malaria pandemic offer more clues.

On the other hand, cats -- for example -- are highly prone to kidney failure in a way that humans are not.

I have the feeling this has much more to do with our self inflicted lifestyle than genetic factors.<p>Maybe no other animal is just that stupid.

I wonder if a gone lost hundreds of years ago is somehow _responsible_, then why heart attack related death mostly occured in last 50 years?

Interesting, I was always under the impression that chipmunks were susceptible to heart attacks. I can&#x27;t remember where I read it and I can&#x27;t find a current source but you are apparently not supposed to harass chipmunks because they can experience stress induced heart attacks when threatened&#x2F;chased. I&#x27;ve also seen potential evidence for this when my cat chased one around a parking lot only for it to collapse after sprinting around for a solid minute. It was immobile, looked short of breath and eventually died at some point between when I brought my cat in and the next morning.

If this turns out to be true, I wonder if this is something CRISPR could fix...

It seems that this guys never tried to catch a shrew.

Perhaps we evolved a heart overclocking ability. Sometimes we just push the heart too hard.

&gt; Atherosclerosis -- the clogging of arteries with fatty deposits<p>What a way to start an article in a website with &quot;science&quot; in its name.<p>Atheroma is an accumulation of white blood cells. White. Blood. Cells. Not fat.<p>&quot;Meat bad, saturated fat bad, eat your necessarily fortified grains and heart-healthy industrially extracted seed oils.&quot;

So now we&#x27;re including &quot;survival of the unfittest&quot; as part of evolutionary theory? Sorry, this makes zero sense. If humans really did evolve, then we hit the lottery - several times.

I like how the headlines explicitly states <i>humans</i>.<p>For yet another study in ... mice.<p>There are other options like dogs and pigs which are much better models for human biology, so if you really want to make a claim about subtle effects of human genetics you need to be as close to a human model as possible.<p>This is entirely ignoring the someone generous leap they make that one single gene mutation is responsible for an increased rate of heart disease. It also doesn’t touch on what the benefits for that gene were (to spread through the gene pool completely it must have some benefit that outweighs the cost)