The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (35 page)

122
The GIANT Consortium study:

Willer, C. J., et al. (2009). “Six New Loci Associated with Body Mass Index Highlight a Neuronal Influence on Body Weight Regulation.”
Nature Genetics
, 41(1):25–34.

123
Researchers in the United States and Finland have found that a high proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibers decreases fat burning and increases blood pressure and risk of heart disease:

Hernelahti, Miika, et al. (2008). “Muscle Fiber-Type Distribution as a Predictor of Blood Pressure: A 19-Year Follow-Up Study.”
Hypertension
, 45(5):1019–23.

Kujala, Urho M., and Heikki O. Tikkanen (2001). “Disease-Specific Mortality Among Elite Athletes.”
JAMA
, 285(1):44.

Tanner, Charles J., et al. (2002). “Muscle Fiber Type Is Associated with Obesity and Weight Loss.”
American Journal of Physiology—Endocrinology and Metabolism
, 282:E1191–96.

124
Francis Holway graciously shared spreadsheets of his data on the body measurements of athletes.

124
Cowgill on innate skeletal differences:

Cowgill, L. W. (2010). “The Ontogeny of Holocene and Late Pleistocene Human Postcranial Strength.”
American Journal of Physical Anthropolgy
, 141(1):16–37.

126
Tanner’s quote comes from:

Tanner, J. M.
Fetus into Man: Physical Growth from Conception to Maturity
(revised and enlarged edition). Harvard University Press, 1990.

8

The Vitruvian NBA Player

129
Dennis Rodman confirmed his rapid height growth in an interview, but his book is the most colorful account and provided his quotes:

Rodman, Dennis.
Bad as I Wanna Be
. Dell, 1997.

130
Michael Jordan notes that he began dunking as a 5'8" freshman in the video
Come Fly with Me
(Fox/NBA), and his brother’s athleticism and diminutive stature is often recounted, perhaps most eloquently in chapter 2 of David Halberstam’s
Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made
. Three Rivers Press, 2000.

131
Gene mixing may be contributing to widespread increase in height:

Malina, Robert M. (1979). “Secular Changes in Size and Maturity: Causes and Effects.”
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development
, 44(3/4): 59–102.

131
Scientific papers addressing the threshold claims of journalists, including Malcolm Gladwell and David Brooks:

Arneson, Justin J., Paul R. Sackett, and Adam S. Beatty (2011). “Ability-Performance Relationships in Education and Employment Settings: Critical Tests of the More-Is-Better and the Good-Enough Hypotheses.”
Psychological Science
, 22(10):1336-42.

Hambrick, David Z., and Elizabeth J. Meinz (2011). “Limits on the Predictive Power of Domain-Specific Experience and Knowledge in Skilled Performance.”
Current Directions in
Psychological Science
, 20(5):275–79.

(The paper notes: children scoring in the 99.9th percentile on the SAT’s math section by age thirteen are eighteen times more likely to get a math or science Ph.D. than children who “only” scored in the 99.1th percentile.)

131
Data analysis of NBA body types in this chapter is original, carried out by the author and psychologist Drew H. Bailey. We used data from the NBA combine and from U.S. government sources that are noted in the text.

133
The 5'3" Muggsy Bogues could dunk:

Foreman, Tom Jr. “Bogues, Webb Make Case for the Little Guy.” Associated Press, February 16, 1985.

135
A fascinating account of the “creation” of Yao Ming:

Larmer, Brook.
Operation Yao Ming: The Chinese Sports Empire, American Big Business, and the Making of an NBA Superstar
. Gotham, 2005.

136
Average height of a seventeenth-century Frenchman:

Blue, Laura. “Why Are People Taller Today Than Yesterday?”
Time
, July 8, 2008.

136
J. M. Tanner’s
Fetus into Man
(Harvard University Press, 1990) served as a source on growth trends in the industrialized world. It is where he recounts: the tale of the identical twin brothers raised in starkly different environments (p. 121); the growth patterns of twins (p. 123); that man did not evolve with the supermarket (p. 130); the leg length disparities between socioeconomic classes (p. 131); work indicating that blind children have distinct growth patterns (p. 146); and rapid leg growth during Japan’s “economic miracle” (p. 159).

136
The study that accounted for 45 percent of the variance in height with DNA variations also discusses the general finding that height is about 80 percent heritable in a given population:

Yang, Jian, et al. (2010). “Common SNPs Explain a Large Proportion of the Heritability for Human Height.”
Nature Genetics
, 42(7):565–69.

137
On the inability to find height genes:

Maher, Brendan (2008). “The Case of the Missing Heritability.”
Nature
, 456: 18–21.

137
Female gymnasts delay menarche, but attain normal adult stature:

Norton, Kevin, and Tim Olds.
Anthropometrica
. UNSW Press, 2004, p. 313.

138
Leg length—and particularly leg growth in Japan—is also discussed in:

Eveleth, Phyllis B., and James M. Tanner.
Worldwide Variation in Human Growth
(2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press, 1991.

138
Charts of leg length by ethnicity:

Eveleth, Phyllis B., and James M. Tanner. “Chapter 9: Genetic Influence on Growth: Family and Race Comparisons.”
Worldwide Variation in Human Growth
(2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press, 1990.

138
The 1968 Mexico City Olympic study (the quote regarding “persistent” ethnic differences appears on p. 73):

de Garay, Alfonso L., Louise Levine, and J. E. Lindsay Carter, eds.
Genetic and Anthropological Studies of Olympic Athletes
. Academic Press, 1974.

140
The original “Allen’s rule” paper:

Allen, Joel Asaph (1877). “The Influence of Physical Conditions in the Genesis of Species.”
Radical Review
, 1:108–140.

140
A massive body of research has extended Allen’s and Bergmann’s rules to humans. For one recent discussion and a listing of confirmatory studies:

Cowgill, Libby W., et al. (2012). “Development Variation in Ecogeographic Body Proportions.”
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
, 148:557–70.

140
The 1998 analysis of body proportions in native populations around the world:

Katzmarzyk, Peter T., and William R. Leonard (1998). “Climatic Influences on Human Body Size and Proportions: Ecological Adaptations and Secular Trends.”
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
, 106:483–503.

141
The 2010 “belly button” study:

Bejan, A., Edward C. Jones, and Jordan D. Charles (2010). “The Evolution of Speed in Athletics: Why the Fastest Runners Are Black and Swimmers White.”
International Journal of Design & Nature
, 5(3):199–211.

Duke press release: “For Speediest Athletes, It’s All in the Center of Gravity.” July 12, 2010.

9

We Are All Black (Sort Of)

Race and Genetic Diversity

142
Background on the “Out of Africa” hypothesis and previously competing hypotheses:

Klein, Richard G. “Chapter 7: Anatomically Modern Humans.”
The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins
(2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press, 1999.

143
One example of the human “family tree” diagram:

Tishkoff, Sarah A., and Kenneth K. Kidd (2004). “Implications of Biogeography of Human Populations for ‘Race’ and Medicine.”
Nature Genetics
, 36(11): S21–27.

144
The intrepid band of our ancestors that left Africa was a small group:

Macaulay, V., et al. (2005). “Single, Rapid Coastal Settlement of Asia Revealed by Analysis of Complete Mitochondrial Genomes.”
Science
, 308:1034–36.

Wade, Nicholas. “To People the World, Start with 500.”
New York Times
, November 11, 1997, p. F1.

144
Molecular dating and fossil methods for the timing of the human-chimp split and the Out-of-Africa migration:

Gibbons, Ann (2012). “Turning Back the Clock: Slowing the Pace of Prehistory.”
Science
, 338:189–91.

144
A succinct look at how genetic diversity decreases with distance from Africa:

Prugnolle, Franck, Andrea Manica, and François Balloux (2005). “Geography Predicts Neutral Genetic Diversity of Human Populations.”
Current Biology
, 15(5):R159–60. See fig. 2.

146
Kenneth Kidd’s coauthored CYP2E1 paper is an example of his rainbow diagrams that describe genetic diversity:

Lee, M. Y., et al. (2008). “Global Patterns of Variation in Allele and Haplotype Frequencies and Linkage Disequilibrium Across the CYP2E1 Gene.”
The Pharmacogenomics Journal
, 8(5):349–56.

147
An excellent and accessible talk by Sarah Tishkoff on the genetic changes that allowed adult lactose digestion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgNEb0itPOs.

148
Adult lactose intolerance is common in Rwanda:

Cox, Joseph A., and Francis G. Elliott (1974). “Primary Adult Lactose Intolerance in the Kivu Lake Area: Rwanda and the Bushi.”
American Journal of Digestive Diseases
, 19(8):714–724.

148
A common gene variant confers immunity from a sports doping test:

Schulze, Jenny Jakobsson, et al. (2008). “Doping Test Results Dependent on Genotype of Uridine Diphospho-Glucuronosyl Transferase 2B17, the Major Enzyme for Testosterone Glucuronidation.”
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism
, 93(7):2500–2506.

148
An interesting albeit technical paper on the 99.5 percent DNA similarity of humans:

Levy, Samuel, et al. (2007). “The Diploid Genome Sequence of an Individual Human.”
PLoS Biology
, 5(10):e254.

149
The 2007 scientific breakthrough of the year, “human genetic variation”:

Pennisi, Elizabeth (2007). “Breakthrough of the Year: Human Genetic Variation.”
Science
, 318:1842–43.

149
Local ancestry of Iceland residents identifiable with DNA:

Helgason, A., et al. (2005). “An Icelandic Example of the Impact of Population Structure on Association Studies.”
Nature Genetics
, 37(1):90–95.

149
DNA pinpoints European ancestry to within a few hundred miles:

Novembre, John, et al. (2008). “Genes Mirror Geography Within Europe.”
Nature
, 456(7218):98–101.

149
A computer blindly grouped DNA into major geographic regions:

Rosenberg, Noah A., et al. (2002). “Genetic Structure of Human Populations.”
Science
, 298(5602):2381–85.

149
The Stanford-led study of self-identified race and genetics:

Tang, Hua, et al. (2005). “Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies.”
American Journal of
Human Genetics
, 76(2):268–75.

150
The Stanford press release (“Racial Groupings Match Genetic Profiles, Stanford Study Finds”) for the study can be found here:

http://med.stanford.edu/news_releases/2005/january/racial-data.htm.

150
On skin color, UV radiation, and latitude:

Jablonski, Nina G., and George Chaplin (2000). “The Evolution of Human Skin Coloration.”
Journal of Human Evolution
, 39:57–106.

150
The main genetic and geographic clusters of people do “correlate with the common concept of ‘races’”:

Tishkoff, Sarah A., and Kenneth K. Kidd (2004). “Implications of Biogeography of Human Populations for ‘Race’ and Medicine.”
Nature Genetics
, 36(11): S21–27.

150
The genetic backgrounds of African Americans:

Tishkoff, Sarah A., et al. (2009). “The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans.”
Science
, 324(5930):1035–44.

150
Tishkoff’s “little genetic differentiation” quote can be found in a University of Pennsylvania press release:

http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/current/node/3643.

151
The National Human Genome Research Institute on race, genetics, and genotypic and phenotypic diversity:

Race, Ethnicity and Genetics Working Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute (2005). “The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in
Human Genetics
Research.”
American Journal of Human Genetics
, 77:519–32.

153
The original ACTN3 paper:

North, Kathryn N., et al. (1999). “A Common Nonsense Mutation Results in α-Actinin-3 Deficiency in the General Population.”
Nature Genetics
, 21: 353–54.

155
The first paper that documented a difference in ACTN3 variant frequency in sprinters and the general population:

Yang, Nan, et al. (2003). “ACTN3 Genotype Is Associated with Human Elite Athletic Performance.”
American Journal of Human Genetics
, 73:627–31.

155
ACTN3 and athletic performance studies in populations around the world:

Eynon, Nir, et al. (2012). “The ACTN3 R577X Polymorphism Across Three Groups of Elite Male European Athletes.”
PLoS ONE
, 7(8):e43132.

Niemi, A. K., and K. Majamaa (2005). “Mitochondrial DNA and ACTN3 Genotypes in Finnish Elite Endurance and Sprint Athletes.”
European Journal of Human Genetics
, 13:965–69.

Papadimitriou, I. D., et al. (2008). “The ACTN3 Gene in Elite Greek Track and Field Athletes.”
International Journal of Sports Medicine
, 29:352–55.

Scott, Robert A., et al. (2010). “ACTN3 and ACE Genotypes in Elite Jamaican and US Sprinters.”
Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
, 42(1):107–12.