engleski

Prevalence of endemic goitre and bio-cultural variation in the Dogon population

Within a multidisciplinary anthropological study of the Dogon population in Mali, the prevalence of endemic goitre of 53 % was reported as well as statistically significant differences in the prevalence of this disease at the subpopulation level indicating the influence of some other causative factors, genetic and/or environmental, in addition to iodine deficiency. The analyses of demographic, nutritional, anthropometric, dermatoglyphic and genetic data also show a marked differentiation of the villages, distributed on three topographical levels: the plateau, the cliff with the height ranging from 300 to 500 m, and the plain. The attempt has been made to determine the amount of heritable differentiation in a small, environmentally and culturally homogenous area with regard to the analyzed traits, and the correspondence between various measures of subpopulation distances. In this paper, particular attention is paid to anthropometric and nutritional status (based on body mass index, and percent fat estimated from skinfolds) and their relationship to the prevalence of goiter. The overall topological similarity of biological, cultural and genetic traits, strongly suggests the interaction of environmental (diet) and genetic (in terms of a predisposition toward or protection from goiter) factors in the onset and prevalence of the disease.

Dogon population; population structure; goitre; anthropology

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