People with Neanderthal genes are TWICE as likely to develop a life-threatening ... trends now
They used to live in caves, hunt their food and were generally tougher than modern-day humans.
But a new study finds if you have Neanderthal genes, you are twice as likely to develop a life-threatening form of Covid.
DNA from the species that went extinct around 40,000 years ago is associated with autoimmune diseases, type 2 diabetes and prostate cancer.
A team of Italian researchers found people with three Neanderthal gene variations were twice as likely to have severe pneumonia and three times as likely to be hospitalized with a ventilator after contracting the virus.
While the findings were part of an experiment, people can investigate how much Neanderthal DNA they have using commercial ancestry tests.
People who have developed life-threatening forms of Covid may have inherited genes from their Neanderthal ancestors, a new study has suggested. Pictured is a statue made to look like a Neanderthal
Neanderthals were a close human ancestor who mysteriously died around 40,000 years ago.
The species lived in Africa with early humans for millennia before moving across to Europe around 300,000 years ago.
They were later joined by humans, who entered Eurasia around 48,000 years ago, and mated, which led to some genes appearing in humans today.
The new study, published in the journal iScience, was led by researchers with the nonprofit Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research.
The team analyzed a sample of nearly 1,200 people in the Bergamo province, home to the pandemic's epicenter in early 2020.
Scientists found that 33 percent of people in Bergamo with the Neanderthal haplotype, a set of DNA variants along a
