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 Indigenous communities in the Andes domesticated the potato between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. PIxabay 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 AMY1 of any population in the world. What’s more, the genetic changes appear to have emerged around the same time potatoes were domesticated in the region.…