Black Death Influence on Auto immune System of today
Do you have an auto-immune disease? It could be why your ancestors survived the Black Death.
The plague left such a mark on humanity that it's still affecting our health nearly 700 years later.
An estimated 200 million people died when the Black Death swept through Europe in the mid-1300s.
A pioneering study analysing the DNA of centuries-old skeletons found mutations that helped people survive the plague.
But those same mutations are linked to auto-immune diseases afflicting people today.