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    Heritage & Health

    Your story begins 65,000 years ago

    Discover the biology in your history.

    Where your family began still lives in your body, in different ways depending on where, exactly, they were from.

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    Where is your family from?

    The subcontinent is drawn here as one land, the way it was. Pick a region and it tells you the biology your heritage shaped.

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    01 of 14 · ~65,000 BCE

    Your roots go back to one small group, 65,000 years ago

    About 65,000 years ago, a small group of people reached South Asia for the first time. Everyone with South Asian roots today traces back to them. They had dark skin built for strong tropical sun, lean bodies built for long days of walking, and an immune system tuned to a hot, crowded world.

    of South Asians in the UK run low on vitamin D, because skin built for tropical sun makes less of it under grey skies

    Dark skin adapted for intense UV. In the UK, 90% of South Asians have insufficient vitamin D

    Strongest in: South India

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