Potatoes Didn’t Just Feed Ancient Indigenous Communities in the Andes—the Tasty Tubers Also Reshaped People’s DNA

A new study finds that Indigenous Andeans living in what is now Peru have extra copies of a gene called AMY1, which helps the body digest starch

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

May 12, 2026 5:13 p.m.

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Between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, Indigenous communities living high in the Andes Mountains began to domesticate the potato. They ate so much of this versatile, highly nutritious tuber that their genes began to change—and those adaptations live on in their descendants today, scientists report in a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

Indigenous Andeans living in what is now Peru have extra copies of a gene called AMY1, which helps the body digest starch. These individuals have the highest known numbers of AMY 1 of any population in the world. What’s more, the genetic changes appear to have emerged around the same time potatoes were first domesticated in the region.

“It is a wonderful ​case of culture shaping biology,” says study co-author Omer Gokcumen, an evolutionary and anthropological geneticist at the University at Buffalo, to Reuters’ Will Dunham.

Scientists studied genomic data from more than 3,700 individuals across 85 populations in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. The sample included 81 people of Indigenous Andean ancestry ‌in Peru who speak Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire.

The native Quechua speakers had, on average, ten copies of AMY1—two to four more than any of the other populations included in the study. AMY1 is responsible for the production of an enzyme ​called amylase, which is found in saliva and helps break down starchy foods in the mouth. Individuals with a high number of AMY1 copies usually produce more amylase and, as a result, can digest starch more effectively.

Because potatoes were a primary source of calories for ancient Andean communities, individuals who could digest them more easily likely thrived—and, thus, had more opportunities to pass along those potato-friendly genes. Indeed, the researchers found that, starting around 10,000 years ago, having ten or more copies of AMY1 gave Indigenous Andeans a 1.24 percent survival or reproductive advantage per generation.

Overall, the findings support the idea that humans are capable of adapting to the types of foods that are available and abundant.

“Biologists have long suspected that different groups of humans have evolved genetic adaptations in response to their diets, but there are very few cases where the evidence is this strong,” Gokcumen says in a statement.

Potatoes first emerged roughly nine million years ago, when the ancestors of today’s tomato plants hybridized with a plant called Etuberosum. Neither wild tomato plants nor Etuberosum could produce tubers on their own, but each carried genetic building blocks that, when combined, ultimately gave rise to the elongated, underground orbs we know and love today. Tomatoes brought SP6A, a gene that triggers tuber growth, while Etuberosum supplied IT1, which controls the growth of the underground stems that turn into tubers.

Since then, potatoes have diversified into thousands of unique varieties. In Peru alone, there are 3,000 to 4,000 different kinds ​of potato, per Reuters.

“These are not the smooth-skinned russets or pale Maris Pipers that can be found on supermarket shelves in Europe and the U.S.,” wrote Kelly Oakes for BBC News in 2023. “Instead, they come in shades of purple, pink, red and black, as well as white and yellow.”

Meanwhile, in the centuries following their domestication, potatoes have also spread around the world. From South America, they reached Europe in the 16th century after the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. By the end of the 18th century, potatoes had become a staple food across much of Europe, as Charles C. Mann reported for Smithsonian magazine in 2011.

“Despite its origins in the Andes, it’s an incredibly successful global food,” Rebecca Earle, a food historian at the University of Warwick and the author of Feeding the People: The Politics of the Potato, told BBC’s Diego Arguedas Ortiz in 2020. “It’s grown practically everywhere in the world, and practically everywhere, people consider it one of ‘our foods.’”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.