Auto-Immune Disease and the Black Death

There may be some link between the two.

The Black Death apparently had an evolutionary impact on Europeans, in that survivors tended to have a more active immune system, one that more aggressively combated invading bugs.

I don't know how they're going to tease out whether or not the descendants of the survivors of the Black Death are more susceptible to some autoimmune diseases than descendants of populations where the Black Death didn't run rampant. There are a heck of a lot of possible causes for those diseases, all of which will have to be accounted for.

It'll be an interesting line of research, though.

(H/T)