Madrigal L
Hum Biol. 1989 Jun;61(3):311-25.
Epidemiological and clinical studies (Fleming et al. 1985; Perrin et al. 1982) indicate that hemoglobin (Hb) AS individuals have a selective advantage in malarial environments. Thus the high frequency of Hb S in human populations has been attributed to the decreased malarial morbidity and mortality experienced by Hb AS heterozygotes. It has also been suggested that Hb AS women have a higher fertility than that of Hb AA women, thus contributing to the elevated frequency of Hb S in malarial environments (Livingstone 1957). Firschein (1961) demonstrated a significantly greater fertility among Hb AS females, whereas Custodio and Huntsman (1984) documented no fertility differential between Hb AS and Hb AA women. Here I examine the reproductive careers of Hb AA and Hb AS subjects 40 years of age and older from Limon, Costa Rica. The purpose is to determine whether normal homozygotes and heterozygotes have significantly different fertilities. The research shows that these groups do not have significantly different completed family sizes (t = 0.38, ns) or significantly different numbers of pregnancies (t = 0.34, ns), live births (t = 0.36, ns), or abortions (t = 0.20, ns). My results support previous suggestions that differential fertility does not contribute to the maintenance of the Hb S polymorphism.
流行病学和临床研究（弗莱明等人，1985年；佩兰等人，1982年）表明，血红蛋白（Hb）AS个体在疟疾环境中具有选择性优势。因此，人群中Hb S的高频率归因于Hb AS杂合子疟疾发病率和死亡率的降低。也有人提出，Hb AS女性比Hb AA女性具有更高的生育能力，从而导致疟疾环境中Hb S频率升高（利文斯通，1957年）。菲施泰因（1961年）证明Hb AS女性的生育能力明显更强，而库斯托迪奥和亨茨曼（1984年）记录到Hb AS和Hb AA女性之间不存在生育差异。在此，我研究了来自哥斯达黎加利蒙的40岁及以上Hb AA和Hb AS受试者的生育历程。目的是确定正常纯合子和杂合子的生育能力是否存在显著差异。研究表明，这些群体的家庭子女总数（t = 0.38，无显著性差异）、怀孕次数（t = 0.34，无显著性差异）、活产数（t = 0.36，无显著性差异）或流产数（t = 0.20，无显著性差异）均无显著差异。我的结果支持了先前的观点，即生育差异无助于维持Hb S多态性。
