The costs of human inbreeding and their implications for variations at the DNA level

@article{Bittles1994TheCO,
  title={The costs of human inbreeding and their implications for variations at the DNA level},
  author={Alan H. Bittles and James V. Neel},
  journal={Nature Genetics},
  year={1994},
  volume={8},
  pages={117-121}
}
An analysis of the world literature on the children of first cousin marriages reveals that the depression of survival in offspring followed from birth (including late miscarriages; at about six months gestation or later) to a median age of 10 years is constant (4.4% ± 4.6) across a wide range of values for population prereproductive mortality. There is thus no evidence for the action of conditional lethals. On the basis of these data, it is calculated that the average human is heterozygous for… 
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Synergistic interaction of heterozygous deletions impairs performance and confers susceptibility to disease at all ages.

Inbreeding and risk of late onset complex disease

The reported finding of greater inbreeding effects for traits such as blood pressure and serum cholesterol in middle age compared with early adult life is consistent with this.

Does inbreeding lead to decreased human fertility?

Fertility in first cousin unions was positively influenced by a number of variables, including illiteracy, earlier age at marriage and lower contraceptive uptake, but the most important of these parameters were duration of marriage and reproductive compensation.

Inbreeding effects on fertility in humans: evidence for reproductive compensation.

The effects of inbreeding on fertility among inbred adult Hutterites is investigated and significantly reduced fecundity among the most inbred Hutterite women, as evidenced by longer interbirth intervals and longer intervals to a recognized pregnancy, which suggest the presence of recessive alleles that adversely affect fertility among the population.

Consanguinity, human evolution, and complex diseases

A range of primarily social factors, including urbanization, improved female education, and smaller family sizes indicate that the global prevalence of consanguineous unions will decline, which will initially result in decreased homozygosity, accompanied by a reduction in the expression of recessive single-gene disorders.

Effects of Isolation and Inbreeding on Human Quantitative Traits: An Example of Biochemical Markers of Hemostasis and Inflammation

This work investigated the effects of individual genome- wide het- erozygosity measured as the multilocus heterozygosity (MLH) on biochem- ical markers of hemostasis and inflammation in 1,041 individuals from the island of Vis, Croatia, where inbreeding is prevalent and a wide range of variation in the genome-wide heterozygosa is expected.

Incest, inbreeding, and their consequences

The comparative role of consanguinity in infant and childhood mortality in Pakistan

The results indicate that, even after controlling for these non‐genetic variables, inbreeding at the level of first cousin exerted a significant adverse effect on survival in four of the five age intervals examined, neonatal, post‐neonatal, infant and under 5 years.

Effects of Isolation and Inbreeding on Human Quantitative Traits: An Example of Biochemical Markers of Hemostasis and Inflammation

Weak associations between PGH and MLH and markers of hemostasis and inflammation suggest that their genetic control may not be highly polygenic and that they could be promising targets for genetic association studies.

The bases of western attitudes to consanguineous marriage

  • A. Bittles
  • History
    Developmental medicine and child neurology
  • 2003
There are frequent references to marriages between close biological relatives in the Bible, for example, the Patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah (Genesis 20:12), and Amran andJochebed, the parents of Aaron and Moses, who were related as nephew and aunt (Exodus 6:20).
...

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