What made Beethoven sick? DNA from his hair offers clues
File video above: Lock of Beethoven바카라 게임 웹사이트s hair auctioned off in 2019
Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven's death, researchers pulled DNA from strands of his hair, searching for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that plagued him.
They weren't able to crack the case of the German composer's deafness or severe stomach ailments. But they did find a genetic risk for liver disease, plus a liver-damaging hepatitis B infection in the last months of his life.
These factors, along with his chronic drinking, were probably enough to cause the liver failure that is widely believed to have killed him, according to a .
This Sunday marks the 196th anniversary of Beethoven's death in Vienna on March 26, 1827, at the age of 56. The composer himself wrote that he wanted doctors to study his health problems after he died.
바카라 게임 웹사이트With Beethoven in particular, it is the case that illnesses sometimes very much limited his creative work,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said study author Axel Schmidt, a geneticist at University Hospital Bonn in Germany. 바카라 게임 웹사이트And for physicians, it has always been a mystery what was really behind it.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Since his death, scientists have long tried to piece together Beethoven's medical history and have offered a variety of possible explanations for his many maladies.
Now, with advances in ancient DNA technology, researchers have been able to pull genetic clues from locks of Beethoven바카라 게임 웹사이트s hair that had been snipped off and preserved as keepsakes. They focused on five locks that are 바카라 게임 웹사이트almost certainly authentic,바카라 게임 웹사이트 coming from the same European male, according to the study.
They also looked at three other historical locks but weren't able to confirm those were actually Beethoven's. Previous tests on one of those locks suggested Beethoven had lead poisoning, but researchers concluded that the sample was actually from a woman.
After cleaning Beethoven's hair one strand at a time, scientists dissolved the pieces into a solution and fished out chunks of DNA, said study author Tristan James Alexander Begg, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge.
Getting genes out was a challenge since DNA in hair gets chopped up into tiny fragments, explained author Johannes Krause, a paleogeneticist at Germany바카라 게임 웹사이트s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
But eventually, after using up almost 10 feet (3 meters) of Beethoven바카라 게임 웹사이트s hair, they were able to piece together a genome that they could 바카라 게임 웹사이트quiz바카라 게임 웹사이트 for signs of genetic disease, Krause said.
While researchers didn't find any clear genetic signs of what caused Beethoven바카라 게임 웹사이트s gastrointestinal issues, they found that celiac disease and lactose intolerance were unlikely causes. In the future, the genome may offer more clues as we learn more about how genes influence health, Begg said.
The research also led to a surprising discovery: When they tested DNA from living members of the extended Beethoven family, scientists found a discrepancy in the Y chromosomes that get passed down on the father's side. The Y chromosomes from the five men matched each other 바카라 게임 웹사이트 but they didn't match the composer's.
This suggests there was an 바카라 게임 웹사이트extra-pair paternity event바카라 게임 웹사이트 somewhere in the generations before Beethoven was born, Begg said. In other words, a child born from an extramarital relationship in the composer's family tree.
The key question of what caused Beethoven바카라 게임 웹사이트s hearing loss is still unanswered, said Ohio State University's Dr. Avraham Z. Cooper, who was not involved in the study. And it may be a difficult one to figure out, because genetics can only show us half of the 바카라 게임 웹사이트nature and nurture바카라 게임 웹사이트 equation that makes up our health.
He added that the mystery is part of what makes Beethoven so captivating: 바카라 게임 웹사이트I think the fact that we can바카라 게임 웹사이트t know is OK,바카라 게임 웹사이트 Cooper said.