Can you drink milk?

[Rob Williams]

I noticed an article the other day at USA Today that reported on a study saying that 60% of adults can't drink milk. I admit, that floored me, because while I knew that many were lactose intolerant, I never would have imagined that the number would be so staggeringly high. It's humorous, but the article actually says that people who can drink milk, have weird bodies.

I for one love to drink a tall glass of milk every so often, and I couldn't imagine putting anything else in my cereal, so I'd hate to not be able to drink it. Who's with me? Any of you guys unable to drink milk?

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-08-30-lactose-intolerance_N.htm

 

[Merlin]

Not Me, I keep 2 gallons of Whole Milk in the fridge

 

[Kougar]

That is really bizarre, but its amazing to read that. Completely makes an about face about what I thought about the prevalence of lactose intolerance

I used to be badly allergic to milk (There is a difference between an allergic reaction versus being lactose intolerant), and while I did outgrow most of my food allergies it was because of this I never got a taste for the stuff. I tried it and I just couldn't stand it... but I cook with it all the time now. And without milk, there wouldn't be cheese. Can't have Mexican or most Italian food without cheese...

 

[Phineas]

I noticed an article the other day at USA Today that reported on a study saying that 60% of adults can't drink milk.

Did the article say that conclusively or was it quoting a PHD's reaserch? All news articles need testing, often what we read as scientific fact is in reality speculation. And that is especially so in medical stories, where researchers dependent on grants need publicity to keep the money flowing, and the path to that publicity is usually through dramatic claims.

I never would have imagined that the number would be so staggeringly high.

I doubt that it is. Of all the people I know I don't kow anyone who is lactose intolerant. In fact I know more with glutin alergies [no wheat].

I never would have imagined that the number would be so staggeringly high. It's humorous, but the article actually says that people who can drink milk, have weird bodies.

I for one love to drink a tall glass of milk every so often, and I couldn't imagine putting anything else in my cereal, so I'd hate to not be able to drink it. Who's with me? Any of you guys unable to drink milk?

I drink eight to ten liters of whole or two per cent milk a week. My body isn't weird, just old.

 

[2Tired2Tango]

And that is especially so in medical stories, where researchers dependent on grants need publicity to keep the money flowing, and the path to that publicity is usually through dramatic claims.

Publish or perish. ... the underlying science behind many a well known theory.

I doubt that it is. Of all the people I know I don't kow anyone who is lactose intolerant. I

Well, now you know one ... It's odd but cheese doesn't bother me, butter doesn't bother me... but a gulp of bottled milk will double me right over with stomach pain.

 

[bhsbbt]

Definitely drink milk everyday, the 60% number really did floor me. I do remember reading somewhere Asians tend to be less lactose tolerant overall then other ethnicities due to some gene.

 

[RobbyBob]

I can drink milk, and do only on occasion. Cereal is about the only time I ever have milk, because any time I drink it alone I get gassy and feel like .

 

[djw746]

I drink milk but then again I am Caucasian so that isn't a surprise.

Most people in the world become lactose intolerant (and mammals for that matter) after they become adults. It all has to do with genetics. Caucasians can thank their milk drinking ways to our ancestors depending on things like goat milk to survive... since those that were intolerant didn't survive famines way back when. Who thought famine could be a good thing?

 

[gibbersome]

Definitely drink milk everyday, the 60% number really did floor me. I do remember reading somewhere Asians tend to be less lactose tolerant overall then other ethnicities due to some gene.

East Asian women are actually the least tolerant of alcohol or any demographic.

Use this information wisely...

 

[Psi*]

What area is East Asia? Does this indicate that Japan is in West Asia?

I know (I think) that South Asia is the area of India.

 

[gibbersome]

What area is East Asia? Does this indicate that Japan is in West Asia?

I know (I think) that South Asia is the area of India.

East Asian = women of oriental descent.

Chiefly China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

25 to 50 percent of Asians possess a gene, inactive aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2–2) (Cook and Gurling 2001; Lieber 2001), which causes them to metabolize alcohol differently from people who do not have this gene. When a person with this gene drinks alcohol, ALDH2–2 leads to the slower than normal oxidation of acetaldehyde, which results in elevated levels of acetaldehyde in the blood. After drinking, people with the ALDH2–2 gene experience a constellation of physical reactions: perspiration, headache, palpitations, nausea, tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), and facial flushing, which is caused by dilation of blood vessels in the face, or a flushing of the face.

Asian women possess the faulty gene at 2-3 times the rate men do. It doesn't mean they'll get drunk easily, rather it means that they'll have an unfavorable response to drinking.

Information pulled from here:
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh26-4/251-256.htm

 

[Psi*]

I guess I am still waking up today. Obviously Japan is on the eastern edge of "Asia" & not west of anything Asian. Except Siberia ...

Not to split hairs, but isn't "East Asia" redundant & I didn't see the term used in the link.

I drink milk. I am Caucasian & have read about how the plagues in Europe did have considerable influence on the gene pool.

 

[gibbersome]

I guess I am still waking up today. Obviously Japan is on the eastern edge of "Asia" & not west of anything Asian. Except Siberia ...

Not to split hairs, but isn't "East Asia" redundant & I didn't see the term used in the link.

I drink milk. I am Caucasian & have read about how the plagues in Europe did have considerable influence on the gene pool.

Well I guess it really depends on how you use it. In America "Asian" is considered of Oriental descent, yet there are 1.5 billion+ people in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh who would also be considered Asian in the true sense of the world. Their proper designation though, is "South Asian".

I wanted to make a distinction between the two rather than ignore this large demographic that makes up a quarter of the world's population.

The relationship between the black plague and lactose intolerance would be very interesting to explore.

 

[JMMDTG]

I can't drink milk. I was diagnosed as lactose intolerant when I was six years old but I have tons of other GI related issues as well. I can have lactose free milk in baked items and I do occasionally eat Bryers lactose free ice cream.

 

[Psi*]

Ha! As 1 of my friends with multiple possible allergies often comments about new restaurants, "It's not GI approved yet." And, won't go until those with at least a fussy palate offers a review.

There is this link ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death that I think got me off on a tangent sometime ago. Follow the references & I think you get at least a few theories about diet & those who survived. And conclude that there is still a lot of conjecture.

 

[gibbersome]

Ha! As 1 of my friends with multiple possible allergies often comments about new restaurants, "It's not GI approved yet." And, won't go until those with at least a fussy palate offers a review.

There is this link ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death that I think got me off on a tangent sometime ago. Follow the references & I think you get at least a few theories about diet & those who survived. And conclude that there is still a lot of conjecture.

Thanks, I didn't find anything on lactose intolerance immediately. It's possible, milk could have very well have acted as a vector for the bacterium. But the infection was so easily transmissible (especially considering the sanitary systems or lack thereof) that it's tough to say.

However, another plausible theory would date even further back to raw milk (pasteurization has only been around for a little over 100 years). Those that didn't consumer milk were less likely to contract tuberculosis, typhoid, and salmonella and thus the lactose intolerance gene propagated. This could have happened over a period of several thousand years.

Evolutionary epidemiology is very interesting, isn't it?

Medicine is progressing at such a break neck speed right now, primarily with a greater understanding of proteins and genetics. Remember the tipping point in computer hardware in1950s with Turing and Moore's Law?

I think we at a similar juncture with medicine, imagine being able to actively program stem cells to do what you want. Imagine virus as vectors to engage gene therapy. And that's just the start. When I started college, all this was 100-200 years away, now maybe a few decades.

 

[Psi*]

Thanks, I didn't find anything on lactose intolerance immediately. It's possible, milk could have very well have acted as a vector for the bacterium. ...
.
.
.
Evolutionary epidemiology is very interesting, isn't it?

Medicine is progressing at such a break neck speed right now, ...

I believe that the spread of most of the plagues have been blamed on rats->fleas. But you sound like you prefer some evidence, as I. And, we know that there is no proof for all of the plagues ... Although I am not sure that it follows that milk could have been a vehicle given the lactose intolerance possibility. Meaning if you are allergic to it, you would not be drinking it in the 1st place?

Wondering outloud, if the percent of people who have lactose intolerance was similar "then" as it is now, it is a wonder that anyone would drink milk.

I remember "medicine" condemning coffee, or caffeine, for being a cause for high blood pressure. Now many studies call it an effective anti-oxidant. As well as 8 oz of alcohol is now good for the heart ... red wine even better and your not an alcoholic! Thinking about the latter at the moment with some very dark chocolate.

Sort of on topic of the thread ... http://sparksgenealogy.net/melungeons.html I have some of the melungeon characteristics & have been called Black Irish. My family tree on both sides is traced back to the 1790s in the US & thru all of the states mentioned. My mother is lactose intolerant & I had a couple of south paw uncles on my mother's side; not my father. The term reminds me of the Harry Potter term "muggle".

 

[Psi*]

It occurred to me that those who drank milk during the plagues and if milk was a vehicle for infection that they would have died off leaving a majority that are now lactose intolerant! I think that was your point?

A chunk of the article.

"It's not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0% of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the world's highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.

Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn't really call lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it's abnormal. Instead, they call it lactase persistence, indicating what's really weird is the ability to continue to drink milk.

There's been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.

A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe, where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could also get the crucial hormone (it's not really a vitamin at all) from milk.

But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel Beaker culture.

The paper was published this week in PLoS Computational Biology.

The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence, dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.

Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But the computer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-dairying groups.

Author Mark Thomas of University College London's dept of Genetics, Evolution and Environment says: "In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated with lactase persistence and appears to have given people with it a big survival advantage." "

.... a survival advantage is their conclusion!!

 

[gibbersome]

Wondering outloud, if the percent of people who have lactose intolerance was similar "then" as it is now, it is a wonder that anyone would drink milk.

Yeah, I wonder who first thought, "Hey look at white substance that coming out from that cow's udders. I wonder what it tastes like!"

Most likely someone with an Oedipus complex.

I remember "medicine" condemning coffee, or caffeine, for being a cause for high blood pressure. Now many studies call it an effective anti-oxidant. As well as 8 oz of alcohol is now good for the heart ... red wine even better and your not an alcoholic! Thinking about the latter at the moment with some very dark chocolate.

Remember when doctors back in the 50s endorsed smoking cigarettes? If not, then check this ad out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyhvHB62ph8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCMzjJjuxQI
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/media/07adco.html

Times change. A few decades from now we might find that soy isn't as good for us as we thought and realize that most of the research in soy has been done by the soy industry.

Or that the studies on chocolate and its beneficial effects on the immune system was funded by Heshey. Or that all the benefits that supposedly come from pomegranate juice is supplied from POM (you know the guys who bottle 300 ml of juice and sell it to you for $6).

There is a lot of hurried research in the field and not all of it from private companies. Researchers are under a lot of pressure to produce results or they won't be approved for grants.

 

[gibbersome]

It occurred to me that those who drank milk during the plagues and if milk was a vehicle for infection that they would have died off leaving a majority that are now lactose intolerant! I think that was your point?

A chunk of the article.

"It's not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0% of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the world's highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.

Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn't really call lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it's abnormal. Instead, they call it lactase persistence, indicating what's really weird is the ability to continue to drink milk.

There's been a lot of research over the past decade looking at the genetic mutation that allows this subset of humanity to stay milk drinkers into adulthood.

A long-held theory was that the mutation showed up first in Northern Europe, where people got less vitamin D from the sun and therefore did better if they could also get the crucial hormone (it's not really a vitamin at all) from milk.

But now a group at University College London has shown that the mutation actually appeared about 7,500 years ago in dairy farmers who lived in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe, in what was known as the Funnel Beaker culture.

The paper was published this week in PLoS Computational Biology.

The researchers used a computer to model the spread of lactase persistence, dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe.

Today, the highest proportion of people with lactase persistence live in Northwest Europe, especially the Netherlands, Ireland and Scandinavia. But the computer model suggests that dairy farmers carrying this gene variant probably originated in central Europe and then spread more widely and rapidly than non-dairying groups.

Author Mark Thomas of University College London's dept of Genetics, Evolution and Environment says: "In Europe, a single genetic change...is strongly associated with lactase persistence and appears to have given people with it a big survival advantage." "

.... a survival advantage is their conclusion!!

Wow, thanks!

It was the exact opposite of what I assumed. We started out with adult lactose intolerance and went the other direction.