12/8 How come human adults can digest cow's milk but not human breast milk?
Why has our digestive system evolved into like this? Is there any
evolutional advantage?
\_ You have two flawed assumptions in one sentence.
\_ Yes, human adults, as long as they aren't lactose intolerant,
can digest human breast milk. What makes you think otherwise?
Of course, it isn't something you'll likely experience unless
you became pregnant or your significant other does...
\_ That's what the nurse at the children hospital told me. She said
my baby will get diarrhea if I feed him cow's milk, while I'll
get diarrhea if I drink his formula.
\_ She's trying to trick you. You remember the apple and
the garden of eden, right? Drink the milk, just do it.
\_ This is different than what you said. You asked only about
adults and breast milk. Now you're talking about adults and
formula, and infants and cow milk.
\_ Word of advice. Stay with breastmilk as long as you can,
then with formula as long as you can, before switching to
things like cow's milk and solid food.
\_ Being able to digest milk obviously has an evolutionary advantage
if you have access to milk from livestock etc., under circumstances
of general food shortage. They're turning grass into an edible food.
It's kind of a mutant ability. Other animals generally can't do it.
\_ Any mammal can lactate. It's no "mutant ability".
\_ He said being able to digest milk [as an adult] is a
mutant ability, not lactating. And fully half of all
mammals cannot lactate. The male ones.
\_ bzzt.
\_ The ability in closest proximity is "turning grass into
an edible food".
\_ ok well I meant the digestion, that's what this thread
is about. -ppp
\_ Cats can digest milk. I am sure other animals can, too.
Mice seem to like cheese.
\_ I hope you don't own a cat. In spite of the fact that
some cats _like_ to drink milk, cats are lactose
intolerant, and will get sick from cow's milk. Go
to a pet-store. They have specialized cat-sensitive
milk you can buy, that's lactose free and processed
to be digestible.
\_ Cats are about as indestructible as it gets. Just
water down the milk about 50% and they'll be fine.
If you give them regular milk, they tend to get
the trots. -John
\_ No pun intended, but our cats are not pussies.
They drink small amounts of milk all the time
and it's fine.
\_ How do you know? Maybe they are getting
sick. Diarrhea or whatever cats get.
\_ your cats may be mutated. most cats are
lactose-intolerant. http://csua.org/u/a8u
\_ This link says that your cat may or may
not be. That's just like people.
\_ It doesn't have to do with cow milk or human milk. Babies have
a certain enzyme (lactase) that can break down the carbohydrates
in milk, and they gradually lose it as they get older. "Technically",
all adults should not be able to metabolize lactose, but people
typically tend to retain some lactase in their system.
\_ Can lactose tolerance be developed?
\_ Probably. You can also develop tolerance for anthrax.
\_ what about iocane powder. can you really develop tolerance to
that?
\_ It is odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid,
and is among the deadlier poisons known to man.
\_ Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line
\-Hello there are some mistakes and some semi-accurate
things above. A fair representation of the big picture
with some dicta thrown in is available at:
~psb/MOTD/OnMilkDigestion
\_ Inconceivable!
\_ From my experience, more than 70% of people I
know (from Taiwan, Singapore, China, etc.) from
east asia don't have problem with milk, which
seems to contradict the <30% lactose tolerance
figure given.
\- this is why genetic surveys dont happen via
anonymous motd polls. see second table:
http://lactoseintolerant.org/02_about.html
are you saying the drink milk or they consume
dairy products. not the same thing. or maybe
you just hang out with a lot of 2 yrs olds.--psb
\_ when I was going to primary school in
Singapore, they would have milk programs
and give all the kids milk to drink every
morning. Why would they do that if all
those kids are lactose intolerant?
\- did you miss the part about lactase
production is gradually shut down?
\- did you miss the part where it
says 93% of asian children in
australia are lactase deficient?
also if you look at the figures,
the "shutdown" affects just a
small percentage of the population
(9% to 19% among australian
caucasians). My observation
of most of my east asian acquaintances
drinking milk without problem
includes both children and adults.
\- maybe your friends in sigapore
were "colonized" by sir stamford
raffles and his friends. --psb
\_ hmm ... but the same is true
for my friends from taiwan,
or china. besides, when
singapore was under the brits,
most of the chinese
in singapore were poor coolies,
so incidences of fraternizing
with the brits were very low,
unlike say in British India. |