ETHNOHISTORY, GENETICS, AND CANCER MORTALITY IN EUROPEANS

Geographic variation in cancer rates is thought to be the result of tw o major factors: environmental agents varying spatially and the attrib utes, genetic or cultural, of the populations inhabiting the areas stu died. These attributes in turn result from the history of the populati ons in question. We had previously constructed an ethnohistorical data base for Europe since 2200 B.C., permitting estimates of the ethnic co mposition of modern European populations. We were able to show that th ese estimates correlate with genetic distances. In this study, we want ed to see whether they also correlate with cancer rates. We employed t wo data sets of cancer mortalities from 42 types of cancer for the Eur opean Economic Community and for Central Europe. We subjected spatial differences in cancer mortalities, genetic, ethnohistorical, and geogr aphic distances to matrix permutation tests to determine the magnitude and significance of their association, Our findings are that distance s in cancer mortalities are correlated more with ethnohistorical dista nces than with genetic distances, Possibly the cancer rates may be aff ected by loci other than the genetic systems available to us, and/or b y cultural factors mediated by the ethnohistorical differences. We fin d it remarkable that patterns of frequently ancient ethnic admixture a re still reflected in modern cancer mortalities. Partial correlations with geography suggest that local environmental factors affect the mor talities as well.