Ancient Europeans remained intolerant to lactose for 5,000 years after they adopted agriculture

University College Dublin ^ | 22 October 2014 | UCD University Relations

[Katya]

Probably why cheese making developed... aged cheese has virtually no lactose. the same with longer cultured and strained yogurt. Most commercial yogurt is cultured for less than four hours... they add gelatin to thicken it. Culture that same yogurt in a traditional method at lower heat for 24 hours and drip off the whey and you have a lactose free version.

[dsc]

“it was reserved for cheesemaking”

That would have been after lactose intolerance had become uncommon, wouldn’t it?

[minnesota_bound]

It was the invention of Wheaties that allowed man to enjoy milk and reading the back of the cereal box.

[chesley]

Ouch!!

[Lee'sGhost]

So.... people, being mammals, were unable to breast feed because they were lactose intolerant?

[Grimmy]

And... some of us have DNA that still refuses to give up that ancient tradition.

[Pharmboy]

All humans up to about 4 years of age are able to digest lactose in order to successfully breast feed; only Euros and the Masai maintain that ability into adulthood.

[Pharmboy]

“our results also imply that the great changes in prehistoric technology including the adoption of farming, followed by the first use of the hard metals, bronze and then iron, were each associated with the substantial influx of ,new people. We can no longer believe these fundamental innovations were simply absorbed by existing populations in a sort of cultural osmosis.”

The implication of this is that the people with the new technology wiped out the older populations.

[Lee'sGhost]

Really? So, Asians, Africans, Mongolians, etc., etc. STILL can’t digest lactose?

Thanks for answering and sorry to be so ignorant. Lactose has never been much on my radar.

[Pharmboy]

Correct--and add most southern Europeans to the intolerant group. Intolerant as adults, that is...

See this map.

[Lee'sGhost]

Interesting. Thanks for the lesson.

[MUDDOG]

[SunkenCiv]

LOL

[Cronos]

well, more northern and eastern Europeans -- Aryanic groups

The interesting thing about this map is that it shows that Semites didn't develop lactose tolerance, but they developed cheeses -- so the southern spaniards have a lot of middle-eastern genes, unlike northern Spaniards.

Ditto for Pakistanis who, though Indic, have a higher rate of intolerance compared to Indians

The highest rate of TOLERANCE seems to be slavs -- so indicating the lack of other foods?

The map shows also something strange -- white Americans have a higher tolerance than Western Europeans and higher than Germanics or Brits -- and the largest population of Euroepans in the USA were from Germanics and English/Scots

[SunkenCiv]

an update to this 2014 topic, pingin’ it out there.

Why Did Europeans Evolve Into Becoming Lactose Tolerant?
Famine and disease from millennia ago likely spurred the rapid evolution of the trait on the continent
Brian Handwerk
Science Correspondent
July 27, 2022
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/famine-and-diseases-likely-drove-europeans-ability-to-digest-milk-180980483/

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 11/2/2014.

[Little Ray]

We needed the vitamin D from dairy products.

[Red Badger]

One Word:

CHEESE.........................

[SunkenCiv]

You know what's good on cheese? More cheese.

[Red Badger]

...AND BACON!........................