I was just scanning through posts, and I just thought someone might be interested in the evolutionary theory of lactose intolerance :)
Most human beings become lactose intolerant at some point early in their life, many anthropologists believe we were not meant to drink dairy past infancy even. Its actually a gene mutation long long long ago in early human populatoins that is the reason you never develop the intolerance. Nomadic peoples in the Caucasus mountain region relied on goat milk to survive, thus it was adaptive to have this mutation, so it thrived in this population, which is why Caucasians are less likely than other races to suffer from lactose intolerance. However, not every Caucasion person had this mutation, obviously, so it didn't get passed on to everyone, but the people who have it in their DNA never beome intolerant :) Of course, the mutation reached into other races' gene pools as well, but it is believed to have begun among the Caucasian race.
Interesting theory eh? I learned about
all this in a class I took in college about
human evolution, disease, and nutrition.
OK, that was my fun fact for the day :)
Take care!
ali
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"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful." - Marie Curie
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