Decode the mystery of the blue skin

A family in the US state of Kentucky has unusual, blue skin. Their skin color is the subject of many years of mysterious stories that make scientists seek answers.

In the early nineteenth century, Martin Fugate, an French-born orphan, came to the United States. He settled in a house on the Troublesome River in eastern Kentucky and married Elizabeth Smith, an American woman with red-haired and gray-blue skin.

Their combination in terms of reproduction creates a mutation of genes related to skin color. Two people gave birth to seven children, of which four had blue skin. As adults, their children marry the people of a neighbor's family. Because the two families live in a very remote place, their next generations continue to marry each other. As a result, blue-skinned children continue to be born.

Special skin of a person with Met-H.

The Fugate family's blue skin only began to get attention in 1958, when Luke Combs, a descendant of Martin Fugate, took his wife to medical treatment at Kentucky University Hospital. As soon as he saw Luke, the doctors were surprised because his skin was blue. In addition to the strange skin color, Luke does not face any serious health problems.

In 1980, some scientists came up with the idea for some of Martin Fugate's descendants to drink a blue solution. After drinking their skin solution became as normal as everyone else. Scientists at the time explained that the blue solution made the blood turn red, so the skin was white and pink. Because the solution spreads in the blood, its effect lasts only a few days. So blue people have to drink regular solutions to maintain normal skin, the US -City Herald newspaper recently said.

Today the medical community determines that the Fugate family has methaemoglobinaemia (abbreviated as met-H ). This disease reduces the ability of blood to transport oxygen. Therefore, the blood of an infected person is darker than the normal person's blood. The disease is caused by a recessive gene, but because Martin Fugate and Elizabeth Smith are both recessive genes, their probability of getting together becomes big. Martin's descendants and neighbors' families took each other over generations (inbreeding marriage), so recessive genes combined more and their traits, ie, blue skin, show more frequently.

The population in eastern Kentucky has increased over time, so Martin Fugate's descendants have the opportunity to marry other people in the community, not relatives anymore. So the frequency of recessive genes causing blue skin decreases and the blue-skinned children become more and more rare. Of course, the blue skin-causing genes do not disappear completely, they still hide in the body of a few people and stalk the opportunity.