Sex has another benefit: It makes humans less prone to disease over time

Public Release: 16-Feb-2015

Mixing our genes through sex helps purge us of disease mutations

University of Montreal

For decades, theories on the genetic advantage of sexual reproduction had been put forward, but none had ever been proven in humans, until now. Researchers at the University of Montreal and the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre in Montreal, Canada have just shown how humanity’s predispositions to disease gradually decrease the more we mix our genetic material together. This discovery was finally made possible by the availability in recent years of repositories of biological samples and genetic data from different populations around the globe.

What we already knew

As humans procreate, generation after generation, the exchange of genetic material between man and woman causes our species to evolve little by little. Chromosomes from the mother and the father recombine to create the chromosomes of their child (chromosomes are the larger building blocks of…