According to new finds made in Europe

Aug 28, 2009 22:01 GMT  ·  By

A new scientific study conducted by experts at the University College London (UCL) has determined that the first human populations able to digest dairy products appeared in communities in central Europe, and not in the northern parts of the continent, as first thought. The paper, which is published in the latest issue of the respected journal PLoS Computational Biology, shows that the development of the ability to digest milk sugar lactose was paramount so that people drinking the milk would not get sick and die. The intestines of our ancestors did not have the microorganisms they needed to handle the flux of new, never-before-met ingredients, AlphaGalileo reports.

The “ground zero” of the new ability seems to have been located somewhere between the central Balkans and central Europe, and is roughly 7,500 years old. Some experts have had a hard time believing the new data, simply because it made more sense that northern populations started drinking milk first. For starters, living at higher latitudes means less sunlight hitting the skin, and less vitamin D being produced. This would have led to weak immune systems, and would have, therefore, justified the search for alternative sources of boosting the body's defenses.

On the other hand, people living at lower latitudes experience more sunlight, and theoretically require less artificially produced vitamin D in their systems. But the new model was brutal in its honesty. By combining established genetic and archaeological data with newly developed statistical approaches, the computer offered a powerful estimate of how lactase persistence, dairy farming, as well as other food practices appeared and spread throughout old Europe. “Most adults worldwide do not produce the enzyme lactase and so are unable to digest the milk sugar lactose,” UCL Genetics, Evolution and Environment Professor Mark Thomas says.

“However, most Europeans continue to produce lactase throughout their life, a characteristic known as lactase persistence. In Europe, a single genetic change (13,910*T) is strongly associated with lactase persistence and appears to have given people with it a big survival advantage. Since adult consumption of fresh milk was only possible after the domestication of animals, it is likely that lactase persistence co-evolved with the cultural practice of dairying, although it was not known when it first arose in Europe or what factors drove its rapid spread,” the scientist reveals.

“Our study simulated the spread of lactase persistence and farming in Europe, and found that lactase persistence appears to have begun around 7,500 years ago between the central Balkans and central Europe, probably among people of the Linearbandkeramik culture. But contrary to popular belief, we also found that a need for dietary vitamin D was not necessary to explain why lactase persistence is common in northern Europe today,” Thomas concludes.