Australians have the highest incidence of skin cancer. Residents of the Caucasus and Central Asia are more likely to suffer from cancer of the esophagus and stomach. The Chinese living in the northeast of the country are prone to diseases like Keshan, which occurs due to a lack of selenium in the soil. Are there any diseases inherent mainly in Russians?
In science there is such a branch as medical geography. She studies diseases associated with the racial and ethnic characteristics of a particular people, as well as with the geography of its residence. Cardiologist Lyubov Baghiyan cites as an example a disease that is most common among the peoples of the Far North, as well as among Koreans and Japanese, - alcoholism. And all because in their bodies there is a very low content of enzymes that break down alcohol in the blood.
At the same time, the natives of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands do not even know what hypertension is. And this is due to the peculiarities of their diet: they eat little salt and often eat foods rich in potassium.
Hypolactasia
Hypolactasia is observed in 30 percent of Russians. This is when the body produces very little lactase - an enzyme that helps the normal digestion of milk, says a senior researcher at the genome analysis laboratory of the Institute of General Genetics. N. I. Vavilov Russian Academy of Sciences, candidate of biological sciences Svetlana Borinskaya.
The scientist explains that in ancient times, all peoples on Earth had lactase only in the body of children under five years old. The adults practically did not have it, because they did not drink milk. He was simply not enough. But then in many of today's European countries (Sweden, Holland, Denmark), cattle breeding developed, and milk became available for both children and adults. Over the centuries, the organism of adult inhabitants of these countries mutated, it began to produce lactase more and longer. And in Russia, milk on an industrial scale began to be produced much later, therefore this disease is more common among Russians than among Europeans.
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Other diseases
Geneticist Valery Ilyinsky confirms this data. Among the diseases that Russians most often suffer, he also refers to hereditary deafness, phenylketonuria and cystic fibrosis.
Physician-therapist, endocrinologist, andrologist Irakli Buziashvili claims that Russian medicine "inherited" a number of diseases that were diagnosed mainly in the Soviet Union. Among them, for example, vegetative-vascular dystonia. This disease is not in any English-language reference book. This diagnosis, according to Irakli Buziashvili, was made with hundreds of unrelated symptoms: pressure, cold extremities, headaches, shortness of breath, darkening in the eyes. One of them was enough to deliver vegetative-vascular dystonia and give the person a Temporary Disability List.
Another couple of such diagnoses, about which Irakli Buziashvili speaks, is osteochondrosis and salt deposition. In foreign literature, they are, but with a clear description of the symptoms. Moreover, they are considered very rare. What is diagnosed under these names in Russia has signs of gout, osteoarthritis, and other diseases. By the way, it is gout that contributes to the deposition of uric acid in soft tissues and joints.
With the onset of spring, probably two-thirds of us say with confidence: "I have spring vitamin deficiency." And when someone close to us is often sick, we pass another generally accepted "sentence": "This organism is weakened due to immunodeficiency."
In the USA, Canada, European countries, these ailments are well known. But no one ever associates them with a particular season. There are available descriptions of what specifically can cause vitamin deficiency or immunodeficiency. It has nothing to do with spring or autumn.
The first most famous work in this branch of knowledge "Generalization of general medical practical geography" was published by Fino in 1792. It described in detail the diseases inherent in a particular ethnic group or people living in a particular territory. Today, this area is still of interest to geneticists, doctors, psychologists, and biophysicists. At the same time, in the modern world, people easily change their place of residence, inter-ethnic and interracial marriages mix the genes of different ethnic groups, so a person's diagnosis increasingly depends solely on his individual characteristics.
Maria Pavlova