Potatoes may have given Indigenous Andeans a digestive superpower

The rise of the potato in the Andes appears to have left a lasting mark on human DNA. Indigenous Peruvians carry exceptionally high numbers of a starch-digestion gene, likely because people with more copies gained an evolutionary advantage once potatoes became a staple food. The change began thousands of years before European contact, providing unusually strong evidence that diet can shape human evolution.

from Top Society News -- ScienceDaily https://ift.tt/nZCML9N