Roman Invasion Might Have Made Britons More Vulnerable To AIDS

A latest study has found that people who inhabit the places that were once conquered by the Roman army are less likely to be protected against HIVdefine than those in countries they never reached.

According to researchers a gene exists in huge numbers in areas of Europe where the Roman Empire did not stretch to. This gene helps make people less prone to HIVdefine.

There are certain DNA elements which are lacking in the gene. This means HIV cannot bind to it as easily and is less able to infect cells. The report published in ‘New Scientist’ says that people with this mutation offer resistance to HIV and also take much longer time to develop AIDS.

The study took into account 19,000 DNA samples from across Europe. The scientists came to the conclusion that the gene variant seemed to recede in regions conquered by the Romans.

It has been observed that people in Europe and western Asia carry the gene and it becomes less common as we move towards south. Less than 4% of Greeks have this gene whereas more than 15% of people in some areas of northern Europe carry it.

But study leader Dr. Eric Faure of Provence University in France has contradictory views. He does not accept the belief that Romans spread the regular version of the gene into their colonies by breeding with their natives.

Dr. Faure said, “Gene flow between the two was extremely low.” His findings have been published in ‘Infection, Genetics and Evolution’.

He is of the view that Romans introduced a disease. And it is this disease which people carrying the gene variant are specifically susceptible to. As the Romans progressed towards north this disease killed off people with the variant gene that now protects against HIV.