Peruvian indigenous have a digestive superpower; researchers think it may be linked to potatoes

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:11:24 -0300

Indigenous people of the Andes were the first to domesticate the potato, making the starch-rich crop a dietary staple for this high-altitude population long before it spread to the rest of the world. Today, their descendants in Peru carry the highest known numbers of a gene involved in starch digestion of any population in the world.

Now, a study co-led by researchers from UCLA and the University at Buffalo has discovered that natural selection began favoring Indigenous Andeans with an unusually high number of salivary amylase genes, or AMY1, during the period when potatoes were first grown in the Andean highlands, roughly 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.

AMY1 on Notaspampeanas

Peruvian indigenous have a digestive superpower; researchers think it may be linked to potatoes