Posted on 09/09/2008 1:03:10 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
An EU-funded project coordinated by Uppsala University in Sweden will study the origins and significance of lactose tolerance in Europe. The project, called LECHE ('Lactase persistence and the early cultural history of Europe'), is a training network with 13 participating universities in Europe... Approximately 85% of adult northern Europeans are able to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk and other dairy products; however, in the rest of the world the ability to digest milk drops off sharply after infancy. In fact, as one moves south from Scandinavia, lactose tolerance in adulthood drops off. The persistence of lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) in European adults is a genetic trait that appears to have emerged towards the end of the Stone Age. By around 7,000 B.C. European populations were farming, breeding domesticated animals such as cattle and, importantly, using pottery.
(Excerpt) Read more at cordis.europa.eu ...
A Potted History of Milk
PhysOrg.com | August 2008 | University of Bristol
Posted on 08/08/2008 11:30:55 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2058700/posts
Prehistoric Britons’ Taste For Milk
BBC | 1-27-2003
Posted on 01/27/2003 4:06:39 PM PST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/830671/posts
The matter of milkNo good story about human design flaws can pass up a discussion of flatulence -- and science has addressed the kind that would occur if everyone in the world drank a tall glass of milk at the same time.
Geneticist Pragna Patel of the University of Southern California said one of her favorite examples of evolution in progress involves the gene that determines who can digest the sugars in milk and who cannot.
From genetic studies it appears that so-called lactose intolerance was our ancestral state.
A few people, however, were genetically gifted with an enzyme called lactase, which breaks down lactose, and in groups that started drinking lots of milk around 10,000 years ago, that version of the gene started to take over.
Scientists recently sequenced the lactase gene and found 43 different variations that allow adults to drink the milk of other animals.
"It's the first clear evidence of convergent evolution," Patel said, though it's not known whether those lacking this innovation failed to pass on their genes because they suffered from lack of nutrition or just didn't get invited to any parties.
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Indianas drink a lot of milk. Their per capita consumption is about 3x that of an American, IIRC.
Pain ‘linked with low vitamin D’
BBC NEWS | 2008/08/11 | NA
Posted on 08/31/2008 8:31:16 PM PDT by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2072173/posts
Vitamin D may protect against heart attack -study
Reuters | 10 June 2008 | Will Dunham
Posted on 06/10/2008 6:21:22 AM PDT by Fractal Trader
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2028800/posts
Vitamin D Theory of Autism
Vitamin-D council | Dr. John Cannell
Posted on 07/07/2008 11:38:46 AM PDT by Coleus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2041973/posts
Indianas?
my mistake...I meant “Indians”
How the First Farmers Colonized the Mediterranean
New York Times | August 11, 2008 | Nicholas Wade
Posted on 08/15/2008 11:05:45 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2062499/posts
Interesting.
Some of the results also might depend upon whether the milk was raw or pasteurized.
Heh - Hoosiers drink a lot of milk too - Maybe not 3x normal, but a lot, nonetheless... :-)
That’s why a moose bit my sister — she was trying to milk it. But the moose cheese, outstanding!
:’)
The origins of milk consumption?
That’s easy. It was the cats.
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