Ecuadorian Dwarfs Immune To Cancer, Diabetes

People in parts of Ecuador with a genetic mutation preventing them from growing more than four feet tall are immune to cancer and diabetes — thanks to their genes, according to a new study. Dr. Jaime Guevara-Aguirre of Quito, Ecuador studied people with the mutation, called Laron syndrom or Laron-type dwarfism, for 24 years and found that almost none of the 99 people he studied developed cancer or diabetes, but their relatives of “normal” height did.

The good news for the rest of us from this is that it has allowed researchers to potentially identify how certain genes may prevent cancer and diabetes from developing in everyone else.

The New York Times reported:

They are probably the descendants of conversos, Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal who were forced to convert to Christianity in the 1490s but were nonetheless persecuted in the Inquisition. They are also almost completely free of two age-related diseases, cancer and diabetes.

A group of 99 villagers with Laron syndrome has been studied for 24 years by Dr. Jaime Guevara-Aguirre, an Ecuadorean physician and diabetes specialist. He discovered them when traveling on horseback to a roadless mountain village. Most such villages are inhabited by Indians, but these were Europeans, with Spanish surnames typical of conversos.

As Dr. Guevara-Aguirre accumulated health data on his patients, he noticed a remarkable pattern: though cancer was frequent among people who did not have the Laron mutation, those who did have it almost never got cancer. And they never developed diabetes, even though many were obese, which often brings on the condition.

The key to this seeming immunity to cancer and diabetes is in the peoples’ growth hormones. Thus, although they don’t grow taller, they live longer without these two fatal diseases killing them, although those in the study tended to die from stroke, heart disease, and accidents.