Question

Explain, using the principles of genetic inheritance, why Huntington's disease is common among them Afrikaners.

Answer 1

Answer:

The original Dutch colonists just happened to carry the gene for Huntington's disease with unusually high frequency.

Explanation:

It remains in the population of Afrikaners. This is called the founder effect. A founder effect occurs when a new colony is started by a few members of the original population. This small population size means that the colony may have: reduced genetic variation from the original population and a non-random sample of the genes in the original population. basically, this means their genetic make-up was similar; there was and is little variation.

Answer 2

Answer: The transfer of traits (characters) from one generation to another is called as inheritance.  

The Huntington's disease is common in people of Africa because this disease is very frequent among the Dutch descent population or Afrikaner in the South Africa, as the gene for this disease is unusually very common among the small population of the original Dutch colonists. The disease has been so common in the generations of the Afrikaner since last 14 generations. It is less prominent now as compared to how it was previously.