Researchers at University College London say the Fore tribe’s zombie-like behavior has led to them developing a resistance to a mad-cow like disease called kuru, a “prion” condition like Parkinson’s.
The disease was mostly spread by the eating of relatives’ brains at funerals, a practice that has now been abandoned. A kuru epidemic in the 1950s is believed to have wiped out 2 percent of the tribe’s population.
The findings, which were published in the scientific journal ‘Nature’, said the research had identified a specific gene that is resistant to “prion” conditions like Parkinson’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
“This is a striking example of Darwinian evolution in humans, the epidemic of prion disease selecting a single genetic change that provided complete protection against an invariably fatal dementia,” said John Collinge of University College London’s Institute of Neurology told Reuters.
The Fore people live in the Opaka district of PNG’s Eastern Highlands Province, where their population is estimated at about 20,000.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/133460/brain-eating-cannibals-could-hold-key-to-parkinsons-cure/