Jas Cruzada
Do you want your future kids to be taller, smarter, and brighter? Then studies suggest you choose a foreign partner.
Researchers in the University of Edinburgh found out after genetic studies involving 350,000 individuals from Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America that parents of genetically diverse background produce offspring remarkably taller, and more intelligent than the closely-linked genes.
According to Science Alert, Nathan Richardson of the UK Medical Research Council said, “Most people would believe a diverse gene-pool is a good thing, but the discovery that height is associated with diversity wouldn’t have been foreseen.”
With centuries-old beliefs that children born to parents who are closely related are at risk of developing genetic defects, studies show that out of 16 traits of public health importance, only height, cognitive ability, lung capacity, and level of educational attainment were the only traits affected by the mixing of genes. It also proved that medical factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol levels are not linked to genetic diversity.
While socio-economic factors like better nutrition and advanced study habits are considered a major contribution to a child’s intelligence, an increased genetic diversity, according to their findings, also has an impact. And over the course of time, as outbreeding becomes normal, men become smarter and taller than their ancestors. Philip Oldfield of The Guardian said, “These results could also go some way to explaining the ‘Flynn Effect’ – the increase in intelligence from one generation to the next first documented in the 20th century.”
Co-author Dr. Peter Joshi as reported by International Business Times, explained that the research answered questions first posed by Darwin as to the benefits of genetic diversity.
“We’ve found that the genetics are associated quite robustly across populations, and although we tried to compensate for environmental factors, we think the genetic effects are real.
“There has been speculation ever since Charles Darwin that genetic diversity would be beneficial in terms of evolutionary fitness. We think genetic diversity decreases the chances of inheriting defecting copies of the same gene from both father and mother.
“Our next step will be to hone in on the specific parts of the genome that most benefit from diversity.”
The study was published in Nature, funded by the Medical Research Council.
So, do you want your future children to have an edge in height and intelligence? Go find your future partner on the other side of the world!
Featured Photo Credit: abc.net.au
