Genetic diversity

B

Bobo

Registered Member
Hi, I'm new here, and I hope you can help me in answering that question: Does a wider gene pool resulting from inter-marriage increase the vulnerability to genetic diseases or decrease it?
I've heard contrasiting answers so far, so I hope you can help me by providing links if possible.

Best Regards
 
Bobo, welcome. Some clarification please? Do you mean "inter-marriage", as in marriage within one's own family? That would be inbreeding, incest, consanguinity, and yes its genetically bad. Its the same genetics over and over, and previously recessive-traits would now be expressed more and more often.

Also, inbreeding causes alot of birth-defects, mental retardation etc. Same for animals and plants, although plant breeders sometimes re-cross plants with their parent stock to get the traits to keep showing up over and over again.

Hope that answers the question? If not i'm sure there's millions of websites about the dangers of inbreeding when it comes to people and animals. www.google.com
 
Well, assuming he is not an idiot. Wider gene pool means inter-ethnic marriages NOT inbreeding. I believe the answer is decrease as well.
 
I wasn't assuming he was an idiot, thanks, I thought maybe he was just mistaken or didn't know. But thanks for clearing everything up. JOEMAN :rolleyes: , and sorry for possibly confusing ya Bobo .
 
Eflex tha Vybe Scientist, Joeman and NenarTronian - Thank you all for taking your time out to respond to me. I apologize for not making myself clear, because I intended to ask about interracial marriage(don't worry NenarTronian, it was my mistake ;) ).

After doing my own research, I found it compatible with what all of you told me. I also understood that people with a wide gene pool acquired through centuries who breed in a small geographical environment for a few generations, are more vulnerable to genetic diseases than others with a smaller gene pool breeding in a small geographical environment. And the reason for that is that they would already be carrying a wider variety of diseased recessive genes, and breeding in close proximity would spread these genes in a certain surrounding, which increases the probability of a couple from that surrounding carrying the same diseased recessive gene at the same time.

Again, excuse my naivety, I'm not an expert in these matters, but we learn a new thing every day :) .

Best Regards
 
Not all genetic diseases are recessive. A few are dominant. I don't remember anymore.
 
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