Meet South Korea’s ‘mermaid’ divers - women who may have genetically adapted to dive better, according to a study
An international team of researchers has shed light on the genetic and learned characteristics that aid South Korea’s renowned “Haenyeo”.
A renowned community of female free divers in South Korea has benefited from both training and genetic variation to develop a series of traits that help them to withstand the physical demands of their centuries-old tradition.
That’s the conclusion of a new study by an international team of researchers, whose findings were published in the scientific journal Cell earlier this month.
Who are South Korea’s female free divers?
Known in Korean as the “Haenyeo” - literally “women of the sea” - the divers live on Jeju, a UNESCO-recognized island that lies about 50 miles south of the South Korean mainland.
The Haenyeo, who can carry on diving well into advanced age, spend several hours a day submerging themselves in the sea surrounding Jeju, harvesting shellfish such as abalone and sea urchins for the island’s population.
The women complete the dives without the aid of breathing apparatus, plunging up to 60 feet underwater for periods of up to two minutes, per Oceanographic magazine. What’s more, they do not stop diving while pregnant.
“Extraordinary women”
“They’re absolutely extraordinary women,” the University of Utah geneticist Melissa Ilardo, a senior author on the Cell paper, told the U of U website. “Every day, they head out and get in the water, and that’s where they work all day.
“I saw women over 80 diving off a boat before it even stopped moving.”
How do the divers’ genetic traits help them?
In a study that examined three groups of participants - Haenyeo divers, non-diving Jeju residents, and people from South Korea’s mainland - researchers were able to identify apparent genetic patterns that aid the island’s diving tradition.
The scientists found that Jeju’s community - both divers and non-divers - appear to descend from the same ancestral population and are genetically different to mainland residents.
“We can essentially think of everyone from Jeju as either ‘diving Haenyeo’ or ‘non-diving Haenyeo,’ because their genetics are the same,” Ilardo told a press release published on the EurekAlert news site.
Among Jeju residents, researchers found evidence of two genetic variations that appear beneficial to the divers’ activities.
One is associated with tolerance of cold temperatures, which may protect divers against conditions such as hyperthermia. The other is linked to lower blood pressure, a trait relevant to the Haenyeo’s habit of diving while pregnant.
“This association may reflect natural selection to mitigate the complications of diastolic hypertension experienced by female divers while diving through pregnancy,” Ilardo says.
Per the Mayo Clinic, high blood pressure during pregnancy can have negative effects on the foetus that include slow growth and premature birth. Indeed, it can even have fatal consequences for both mother and baby.
Divers have learned to drop heart rate dramatically
Researchers also found that Jeju divers are particularly effective at reducing their heart rate - an ability that helps to save energy and oxygen while diving.
As they are genetically the same as the island’s non-divers, the scientists determined that this particular trait must be learned: the result of years of practice.
“Because the Haenyeo have been diving for a very long time, their heart rate has been trained to drop more,” Ilardo explains. “This was something we could actually visually see - we had one diver whose heart rate dropped by over 40 beats per minute in less than 15 seconds.”
“Could inspire the development of therapeutics to treat different conditions”
Researchers are hopeful they can harness their growing knowledge of the Haenyeo to help improve treatments for blood pressure-related health issues.
“We’re really excited to learn more about how these genetic changes may be affecting the health of the broader population of Jeju,” Ilardo says.
“If we can more deeply characterize how those changes affect physiology, it could inspire the development of therapeutics to treat different conditions, such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and stroke.”
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