Lactose intolerance is actually a natural phenomenon.
Turn on the discovery channel or National Geographic and see if you could find any animal that continues to drink milk throughout its lifetime. While you are at it, also try to spot an animal that drinks the milk of another animal. Good luck with that!
Humans are the only species in the animal kingdom that engage in either of the above behaviors.
By default, our ability to digest milk is supposed to decrease as we move into adolescence. In other words, not being able to digest milk throughout our lives or being lactose intolerant is the natural state.
So, how is it that we have a certain ability for sometime in life and not the entire lifetime. Think of hair color. When we are younger we have coloration in the hair, as we begin to hit 40's, our hair turns grey. How is that? As we age, the genes that are responsible for producing hair color, turn off, thus the color in the hair goes missing beyond a certain point.
When it comes to milk. We are supposed to wean away from milk and start consuming other foods as we grow. Nature didnt mean for us to breast feed our entire lives. No animal does that!
However, as we began farming and pasturing, we started to rely on milk more and more, particularly in times of hardships. Over several generations some of us began to develop the ability to digest milk. Those people could survive lean times and thus were able to pass on their genes to their next generation, thus began the ability to digest milk over our entire lifetime for some of us.
How did humans develop the ability to digest milk throughout their adult life?
Thus began what is known as Lactase persistance, which is the opposite of lactose intolerance.
So, is lactose intolerance a genetic condition?
Turn on the discovery channel or National Geographic and see if you could find any animal that continues to drink milk throughout its lifetime. While you are at it, also try to spot an animal that drinks the milk of another animal. Good luck with that!
Humans are the only species in the animal kingdom that engage in either of the above behaviors.
By default, our ability to digest milk is supposed to decrease as we move into adolescence. In other words, not being able to digest milk throughout our lives or being lactose intolerant is the natural state.
So, how is it that we have a certain ability for sometime in life and not the entire lifetime. Think of hair color. When we are younger we have coloration in the hair, as we begin to hit 40's, our hair turns grey. How is that? As we age, the genes that are responsible for producing hair color, turn off, thus the color in the hair goes missing beyond a certain point.
When it comes to milk. We are supposed to wean away from milk and start consuming other foods as we grow. Nature didnt mean for us to breast feed our entire lives. No animal does that!
However, as we began farming and pasturing, we started to rely on milk more and more, particularly in times of hardships. Over several generations some of us began to develop the ability to digest milk. Those people could survive lean times and thus were able to pass on their genes to their next generation, thus began the ability to digest milk over our entire lifetime for some of us.
How did humans develop the ability to digest milk throughout their adult life?
Thus began what is known as Lactase persistance, which is the opposite of lactose intolerance.
So, is lactose intolerance a genetic condition?
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