[Gingersnap]

Well, that milk-drinking observation is bogus. All normal human beings can digest milk as infants. It’s only if they get weaned and then avoid milk for years that they lose the ability to digest it.

Asians and Africans who grow up in milk-drinking cultures can drink milk.

[allmendream]

Actually in almost all mammals there is a gene that turns off the lactase gene that makes the lactase enzyme to digest lactose the sugar in milk. There is a common allele that is a mutation of this inactivating gene, such that lactase is constitutively expressed throughout life. This allele is most common in Northern European populations, who have apparently ‘evolved’ to drink milk.

If you adopt an African or Asian child and insist on feeding it milk past infancy you will notice a large amount of intestinal distress, an no amount of ‘inculturation’ into our milk drinking culture is going to inactivate his gene that inactivates the lactase gene.

[Woolly Bear]

I am 50 years old and I love milk. I suddenly became lactose intolerant two years ago. A week in the hospital and a couple units of blood taught me to leave the stuff alone.