EAST EUROPEAN GENE POOL AND DISEASES IN THE RURAL-POPULATION OF EUROPEAN RUSSIA

New data on the association of the state of health and the disease inc idence with the gene pool were obtained in the East European populatio n. The second principal component (PC2.G, 11.4% of the total variance) of the geographic variation in the gene pool (100 alleles of 34 loci) showed a distinct latitudinal dependence corresponding to the natural zonality of Eastern Europe. This was also characteristic of the first principal component (PC1.M, 75.6% of the total variance) of the geogr aphic variation in the disease incidence (i.e., the number of all new cases diagnosed in out-patient clinics per year) in the rural populati on. The disease incidence decreased from the south-southeast to the no rth-northwest in European Russia. The coefficient of the geographic pa irwise correlation between PC2.G and PC1.M was r = 0.945; their specif ic correlation remained high (r = 0.864), even after a correction for the effects of age composition and heterozygosity. Thus, an insignific ant variation in the gene pool was shown to significantly affect the g eographic distribution of disease incidence in the East European popul ation of Russia (eta(2) = 0.892). A correlation of mapped geographic d istributions of PC1.M and PC2.G in the modern population with those of the principal components of the geographic variation of the rate Pale olithic material culture in Eastern Europe was analyzed. The origin of the latitudinal zonality of the modern gene pool was dated back to th e late Pleistocene-early Holocene. A conclusion was made that diseases that affected reproduction and lethality in the Paleolithic populatio n still represent a mechanism of the gene pool's adaptation to the nat ural zonality of the environment. The latitudinal zonality of disease incidence, which was characteristic of the ancient population, is cons erved in the today's population, owing to the gene pool.