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Mister D
08-08-2013, 12:36 PM
Snip

During the most recent ice age, milk was essentially a toxin to adults because — unlike children — they could not produce the lactase enzyme required to break down lactose, the main sugar in milk. But as farming started to replace hunting and gathering in the Middle East around 11,000 years ago, cattle herders learned how to reduce lactose in dairy products to tolerable levels by fermenting milk to make cheese or yogurt. Several thousand years later, a genetic mutation spread through Europe that gave people the ability to produce lactase — and drink milk — throughout their lives. That adaptation opened up a rich new source of nutrition that could have sustained communities when harvests failed.

This two-step milk revolution may have been a prime factor in allowing bands of farmers and herders from the south to sweep through Europe and displace the hunter-gatherer cultures that had lived there for millennia. “They spread really rapidly into northern Europe from an archaeological point of view,” says Mark Thomas, a population geneticist at University College London. That wave of emigration left an enduring imprint on Europe, where, unlike in many regions of the world, most people can now tolerate milk. “It could be that a large proportion of Europeans are descended from the first lactase-persistent dairy farmers in Europe,” says Thomas.

Snip

Only 35% of the human population can digest lactose beyond the age of about seven or eight

Snip

Most people who retain the ability to digest milk can trace their ancestry to Europe, where the trait seems to be linked to a single nucleotide in which the DNA base cytosine changed to thymine in a genomic region not far from the lactase gene. There are other pockets of lactase persistence in West Africa (see Nature 444, 994–996; 2006 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/444994a)), the Middle East and south Asia that seem to be linked to separate mutations3 (http://thepoliticalforums.com/#b3)

http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471

Adelaide
08-08-2013, 01:24 PM
This was one of the first fun facts I learned in genetics/evolution classes. And when you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that we're the only mammal that drinks/ingests the milk of other mammals.

Mister D
08-08-2013, 01:32 PM
This was one of the first fun facts I learned in genetics/evolution classes. And when you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that we're the only mammal that drinks/ingests the milk of other mammals.

It is odd. I agree.

I'm half Italian and the gene is not as common in the south of Europe but I seemed to have inherited it from one side or the other.

Adelaide
08-08-2013, 01:41 PM
It is odd. I agree.

I'm half Italian and the gene is not as common in the south of Europe but I seemed to have inherited it from one side or the other.

I can drink/eat about 500ml of dairy products. After that, I feel sick. It isn't lactose intolerance or a milk allergy but just sort of my body's threshold for it. Soy and almond products are what I prefer anyways, and I don't feel sick when I drink those.

Mister D
08-08-2013, 01:42 PM
I can drink/eat about 500ml of dairy products. After that, I feel sick. It isn't lactose intolerance or a milk allergy but just sort of my body's threshold for it.

I think I'm the same way. I get mild indigestion if I over do it.

Adelaide
08-08-2013, 01:43 PM
I think I'm the same way. I get mild indigestion if I over do it.

I just get a small stomach ache. I just drink water or Gatorade and the feeling stops.

KC
08-08-2013, 01:44 PM
I can drink/eat about 500ml of dairy products. After that, I feel sick. It isn't lactose intolerance or a milk allergy but just sort of my body's threshold for it. Soy and almond products are what I prefer anyways, and I don't feel sick when I drink those.

Me too. I really can't handle much dairy even though I'm not lactose intolerant, I just have to limit myself.

Mister D
08-08-2013, 01:45 PM
Actually, sometimes I'm not sure if it was the dairy or the onions. Onions can cause some discomfort if you eat too much.

Peter1469
08-08-2013, 02:35 PM
It would be interesting to see the difference with raw milk. I have heard that people who are lactose intolerant with processed milk have no problems with raw milk.

Mister D
08-08-2013, 02:36 PM
It would be interesting to see the difference with raw milk. I have heard that people who are lactose intolerant with processed milk have no problems with raw milk.

All milk would have been raw prior to the modern era, no? Or did you mean in our cases?

Peter1469
08-08-2013, 02:59 PM
I mean today.

Mister D
08-08-2013, 03:02 PM
I'd imagine that if you don't have the mutation it will be bad for you.

Common
08-08-2013, 07:08 PM
I was never lactose intolerant, until later in life, now I drink Almond Milk and use it in cereal. I can tolerate some dairy, I eat yogurt and an ice cream cone.

Ravi
08-08-2013, 08:20 PM
Championing milk subsidizes the dairy industry.

That said, I love milk.