An expansive new study offers clear evidence that sequencing the genomes of diverse populations can yield fresh insights into how our DNA shapes our health.
A team of researchers involved in an ongoing project spearheaded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs analyzed data from nearly 636,000 veterans to look for genetic variants associated with more than 2,000 traits, such as height, blood glucose levels, and whether subjects had certain cancers. Scientists found around 26,000 associations between variants and traits, most of which were detectable regardless of participants’ ancestry.
But nearly 3,500 associations were only apparent when people with non-European ancestry were included in the analysis. The research team also found that including non-European populations increased their ability to pinpoint which genetic variants actually cause someone to have increased risk for a trait.
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“On one hand, we show empirically that genetics is mostly the same. And on the other hand, we show that you learn a lot when you include individuals of non-European populations, and you get a lot of population-specific knowledge,” said Scott Damrauer, one of the study’s senior authors and a vascular surgeon affiliated with the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center.
