Nearly two centuries after Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, scientists have extracted DNA from several strands of his hair in an attempt to learn more about his health problems and hearing loss.

They failed to unravel the mystery of the deafness or stomach diseases of the German composer, but they managed to find genetic risk for liver diseaseand infection of the liver with hepatitis B in the last months of life.

These factors, combined with chronic alcohol use, were likely enough to cause liver failure, cirrhosis, which is widely believed to be the cause of his death, according to a new study that was published today, Wednesday, in the scientific journal Current Biology.

This Sunday marks the 196th anniversary of Beethoven’s death in Vienna on March 26, 1827 at the age of 56. The composer himself told him in a letter that he wanted doctors to study the health problems that he faced in his life after his death.

“In the case of Beethoven in particular, it is a fact that illnesses sometimes severely limited his creative activity. And it has always been a mystery to doctors what is really behind them,” said lead author Alex Schmitt, a geneticist at Bonn University Hospital.

DNA from his “memorable” hair

Since his death, scholars have repeatedly attempted to piece together the mystery of his medical history, occasionally offering a range of possible explanations for his many illnesses. But this is the first time genetic analysis is done and verified by its genome.

Now, with the development of ancient DNA technology, researchers have been able to gather genetic evidence from hair bundles Beethoven, which was cut out and saved.

In total, the team authenticated eight hair samples from public and private collections in Europe and the US. Through these tests, the researchers found that at least two of the tufts did not belong to Beethoven, including the famous tuft once believed to have been cut from the dead composer’s head by 15-year-old musician Ferdinand Hiller. indicated lead poisoningit was finally established that belonged to a woman.

Five samples were found to be authentic. Of these, the Stumpf beam, in the collection of Kevin Brown, a member of the Beethoven Society of America, was the best-preserved specimen, with the strongest link between DNA extracted from this crown and people living in what is now the North Rhine. -Westphalia, where Beethoven’s German origins are well known.

After cleaning each hair individually, the scientists used the DNA collection solution, explains Tristan James Alexander Begg, a biological anthropologist at the University of Cambridge.

In total they used hair almost three meters to be able to synthesize a genome that they will examine for signs of a genetic disease, explains Johannes Krause, a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

While researchers have not found clear genetic evidence of what caused Beethoven’s gastrointestinal problems, ruled out celiac disease and intolerance as possible causes in lactose.

The study also led to unexpected discovery: When testing the DNA of living descendants of Beethoven’s extended family, scientists found paternal Y chromosome incompatibility. The chromosomes of the five men matched each other, but did not match those of the composer.

This suggests that somewhere a few generations before Beethoven’s birth, “out-of-wedlock parenting” occurred, explains Begg. In other words, the child was the product of an extramarital affair in the genealogical tree of the composer.

The main question of what caused Beethoven’s hearing loss remains unanswered.

“We can’t say for sure what ‘killed’ Beethoven,” Krause emphasizes. “Now we can at least confirm that there is a hereditary risk and infection with the hepatitis B virus. We can also rule out many other less likely genetic causes.”

Source: Associated Press.