Recent Explosive Human Population Growth Has Resulted in an Excess of Rare Genetic Variants

Abstract

Exponential Growth Effects Humans are an extraordinarily successful species, as measured by our large population size—approximately 7 billion—much of which can be put down to recent explosive growth. Leveraging human genomic data, Keinan and Clark (p. 740 ) examined the effects of population growth on our ability to detect rare genetic variants, those hypothesized to be most likely associated with disease. It appears that rapid recent growth increases the load of rare variants and is likely to play an important role in the individual genetic burden of complex disease risk.