Scientists from Duke University, USA, led by Professor Andre Bejan, conducted a study and found out why black runners perform better than whites. It turns out that the reason for this is the location of the navel, that is, the center of gravity of the body
According to a study, white and black athletes of the same height have navels at different levels. In particular, the African runner with longer legs always has a center of gravity 3 cm higher than that of the European. And the higher the navel, the more the body rushes forward and the greater the speed a person develops when running. The advantage of black runners over whites is 3% thanks to the navel.
But in the pool, the advantage belongs to whites, who have a longer body than blacks. The lower the navel is, the longer the body is, which allows the swimmer to create a larger wave and swim faster. In this case, the low navel gives the European a 1.5% advantage in swimming over the Africans.
The endurance of certain people, including long distance runners, is associated with a doubling in their bodies of the aquaporin 7 (AQP7) gene, which is responsible for supplying body cells with water and sugar-containing substances.
AQP7 has an extremely important function in the body. The protein it produces allows water compounds and a sugar component called glycerol to enter the cell. These substances supply energy to the cell. It is the active work of AQP7 that distinguishes long-distance runners, whose bodies can mobilize energy molecules from fat reserves and use them to increase the body's endurance.
It also turned out that, compared to the DNA of ten species of various great apes, including chimpanzees and gorillas, human DNA contains five AQP7 genes. Chimpanzees, which are closest in genetic characteristics to humans, have only two of them, while other monkeys have one.
This confirms the theory that the need to run long distances, which stood before our distant ancestors in the process of hunting, led to an evolutionary leap in their development and the appearance of additional genes in the DNA chain. Overall, human DNA differs from that of chimpanzees and other primates in the number of copies in 84 genes.