Inbreeding.

Tar.Aldarion

Just had a little debate on inbreeding, as you do-after reading abook where it took place.
Just wondering what the story is.
If you have a child with your sister/mother/first cousin/second cousin etc, will it be ****ed up or will it take a few generations of inbreeding, how does it differ depending on what type of relation it is? etc.

GuanYin

The main issue with inbreeding is that it invariably leads to offspring being homozygous for some genes - that is, having a pair of genes (one maternal and paternal) coming from the same ancestor.

This isn't a good or a bad thing in itself, however, many genetic disorders are only manifest if both the maternal and paternal genes are the type that contribute to the disease. Because each time inbreeding occurs, the genetic variables in the potential offspring lessen, you're moving closer and closer to homozygosity.

Inbreeding in royal families occured thoughout history for this reason (the flipside), elders may have noticed introducing foreign genotypes into the bloodline caused some desirable reccessive traits to diminish, so kept the bloodline shallow in order to preserve these traits.

senordingdong

But even if you slept with your first cousin there would only be a one in seven chance that the child would be born with a disorder.

So go on Tar, there is the re-assurance you were looking for.

GuanYin

senordingdong wrote:

But even if you slept with your first cousin there would only be a one in seven chance that the child would be born with a disorder.

So go on Tar, there is the re-assurance you were looking for.

How do you reckon that?

There are separate genes or combinations of genes for a multitude of disorders. Depending on the actual individuals it could be anything from 1/1 to 1/1,000,000 (or more).

Tar.Aldarion

senordingdong wrote:

But even if you slept with your first cousin there would only be a one in seven chance that the child would be born with a disorder.

So go on Tar, there is the re-assurance you were looking for.

I like those odds!!!
no matter how innacurate they are
less implying I do the nasty with [strike]kirsty[/strike] some cousin thanks.

el tel

My folks have a holiday home in the Austrian Tyrol and in the local village there is a particular family where the son is the offspring of his brother & their common mother. There are also suggestions that the brother (ie his father) is a similar product of another brother but the mother in his case is unknown. It's all very tragic as the guys are crazy as $hit house rats and asides from their pig farming there's little else they are up to.

senordingdong

psi wrote:

How do you reckon that?

There are separate genes or combinations of genes for a multitude of disorders. Depending on the actual individuals it could be anything from 1/1 to 1/1,000,000 (or more).

Sorry 'bout that, wasn't paying 100% attention at the time, but what I basically recall the teach saying was that in that scenario it was a 1 in 7 chance of a genetic defect occuring.

DrIndy

different combinations of different genes result in different chances of genetic diseases.

In general, there is an increased chance of a recessive trait emerging or a lethal dominant trait (where one dominant gene is not harmful, but two is lethal).

Likewise, there are polygenic diseases which are more likely like late onset type 2 diabetes

clearz

I remember reading that just if you have kids with an irish bird there is a good chance that she is related not so far back and your cousin dosent make much diffenent. Your best chance of not having genitic defects is to be with a girl of a different race.

w66w66

clearz wrote:

I remember reading that just if you have kids with an irish bird there is a good chance that she is related not so far back and your cousin dosent make much diffenent.

An ethnic group is merely an extended family that has partially inbred. Take into account the argument that people are often attracted to those genetically similar to them, inbreeding to a degree seems natural and common.

wheresthebeef

According to my Sociology lecturer, some members of the travelling community reproduce with persons who are too closely related for comfort, and this actually produces a measurable increase in hereditary conditions within the travelling community. There is research into it. I think she mentioned it in relation to Metabolic disorders such as PKU.

DrIndy

True and there are increased genetic disease in Orthodox Jews too who may only marry other Orthodox Jews. Same applies to Romany Gypsies and other minority cultural groups.

Capt'n Midnight

w66w66 wrote:

An ethnic group is merely an extended family that has partially inbred. Take into account the argument that people are often attracted to those genetically similar to them, inbreeding to a degree seems natural and common.

Oddly enough there is a theory that we find a certain amount of difference more attractive than someone who is very similar or someone very different. On a genetic basis this is explained by wanting a few new genes but not so many that there could be problems.

Just think of how many of the people whose parents are from different races who are fairly attractive. Or look at how you rate foreigners by country, remembering that the Irish are Indoeuropeans so would have a degree of relatedness back to India.

The Egyptians and Incas used to use Inbreeding to keep the power and it was a problem here in Europe because of Hemophilia.
http://www.sciencecases.org/hemo/hemo.asp
Look at the family tree by nation and compare it to the countries fighting the First World War - even Alice of Athlone was a carrier.

Queen Victoria might have been illegitimate. They point out that neither her father nor her husband was a hemophiliac. So either there was a spontaneous mutation—a one-in-50,000 chance—or Victoria is the daughter of someone other than the Duke of Kent. Think of the possible consequences to European history: no Victoria, and the current Prince of Hanover, Ernst (descendent of the brother of Victoria’s father), would be King of England today. More importantly, no Victoria would mean no hemophilic son of the Czar of Russia, no Rasputin, and no revolution? What are the chances of this scenario?

w66w66

The thing with nature is that it’s rarely a 100% coherent entity, there are many different factors that drive attraction and their often contradictory. For example women are generally attracted to tall well built men with good facial features, but on the other hand wealth is also a driving force in attraction. This can lead to obvious contraction of women being attracted to small ugly guy who happens to be rich. The same is goes for attraction driven by genetic similarity and genetic dissimilarity, both have their own genetic benefits.

sittingbull

Also i'm not sure if anyone has noticed but i work in a hospital and members of the travelling community are a constant prescence due to the fact as they are generally more exposed to illness (due to environmental factors) because they tend to marry into there own familial bloodlines.

DublinWriter

psi wrote:

Inbreeding in royal families occured thoughout history for this reason (the flipside), elders may have noticed introducing foreign genotypes into the bloodline caused some desirable reccessive traits to diminish, so kept the bloodline shallow in order to preserve these traits.

True...most of the current House of Windsor suffer from Haemophilia.

wheresthebeef

sittingbull wrote:

Also i'm not sure if anyone has noticed but i work in a hospital and members of the travelling community are a constant prescence due to the fact as they are generally more exposed to illness (due to environmental factors) because they tend to marry into there own familial bloodlines.

People in lower socio-economic backgrounds are a constant presence in hospitals as they have poorer health outcomes due to lack of resources, sometimes lower levels of education and less ability to conform to healthy lifestyles. Unfortunately health is an expensive commodity these days, and those who can't pay, tend to lose out. (and i'm not talking about VHI.) The travelling community is a low socio-economic background from a sociological point of view.

sittingbull

I understand, but they are (apart from homeless people) the only level of society which in a lot of cases live in areas with poor sanitation and water supply or in situations where there is 10 people living in one caravan, ( i acknowledge they dont all live like this), this contributes to a large proportion of travellers in hopsitals, also there are lot of emerging studies which state that children of travelling communities are more predisposed to genetic haematologic diseases such as leukemia.

as an aside if you had a hospital with 500 people and removed all the people who are there because of the affects of smoking, drinking and drugs, there would be about 50 people in the hospital.

DrIndy

sittingbull wrote:

I understand, but they are (apart from homeless people) the only level of society which in a lot of cases live in areas with poor sanitation and water supply or in situations where there is 10 people living in one caravan, ( i acknowledge they dont all live like this), this contributes to a large proportion of travellers in hopsitals, also there are lot of emerging studies which state that children of travelling communities are more predisposed to genetic haematologic diseases such as leukemia.

as an aside if you had a hospital with 500 people and removed all the people who are there because of the affects of smoking, drinking and drugs, there would be about 50 people in the hospital.

Another issue with the travelling community is the provision of good primary care as they by default travel and so cannot be followed up by one GP for most of their lifetime. This means that diseases are not followed up, abnormal test results cannot be pursued and children are not always vaccinated properly.

Primary care is the backbone of a health service as this prevents disease.

A solution to this may be to have a travelling GP.

senordingdong

DrIndy wrote:

A solution to this may be to have a travelling GP.

Hahaha.
In fairness thouhg, trying to reason with them would be as difficult as trying to reason with members of Orthodox religions.