Sickle-Cell Disease Among African Americans

802 Words2 Pages

Explain why the increased prevalence of sickle-cell disease among African Americans has more to do with the environmental factors than the skin color or other phenotypes used to define races.

During a short break of solitude from studying, I explored and came across that the environment in which most African Americans reside in has a high occurrence of malaria virus. The malaria virus disease is contagious and when it contaminates someone with sickle cell traits, it cannot survive on the external part of the human body so therefore the individual doesn’t develop the deadly malaria virus. While looking further into our class textbook on Human Genetics 11th Edition by Ricki Lewis, and this issue of sickle-cell among the African Americans, I …show more content…

The WebMD listed the Ashkenazi Jews’ diseases in this order: “Bloom syndrome, Canavan disease, Cystic fibrosis, Familial dysautonomia (FD), Fanconi anemia, Gaucher disease, Mucolipidosis IV, Niemann-Pick disease (type A), Tay-Sachs disease, and Torsion dystonia.” (WebMD, 2005)

Reference

Brooks, Jamie D., King, Meredith L., (2008). Geneticizing Disease. Implications for Racial Health Disparities. Center for American Progress. Progressive Ideas for a Strong, Just, and Free America. Retrieved from https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/downloads/2008_geneticizing_disease.pdf

Lewis, Ricki, (1997), Human Genetics, 2nd Edition, pp 247-248. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/educators/course/session7/explain_b_pop1

Lewis, Ricki, (2014), Human Genetics, 11th Edition, Chapter 12. Gene Mutation. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/VBID1259623602

Lewis, Ricki, (2014), Human Genetics, 11th Edition, Chapter 15 Changing Allele Frequencies, pp 293. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from

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