Comments on: Ötzi tidbits

By: Onur

Onur — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:22:02 +0000

I think the published lactose intolerance proportions of Mediterranean and West Asian countries are greatly exaggerated and wrong (this is probably because many of the lactose tolerance genes haven’t been found yet). For instance, I, living in Turkey in my whole life, have never met someone in Turkey who I know is lactose intolerant. In Turkey milk drinking is greatly encouraged by doctors of medicine and by the governments for people of all ages because of the significant health benefits and I don’t see any talk about lactose intolerance. This is probably because very few people are lactose intolerant in Turkey. BTW, I drink several glasses of milk almost everyday and milk is one of my most favorite drinks (the others are beer and wine).

By: Loog Garoo

Loog Garoo — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 05:53:10 +0000

Worth noting that northern Italians are more inclined to lactose intolerance than southern Italians or Sicilians, and that Basques are practically free of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence#Distribution

By: Justin Giancola

Justin Giancola — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 05:26:14 +0000

It sounds to me like milk with lactase added, which you can buy here in US at most grocers as well.

By: Meng Bomin

Meng Bomin — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 08:30:55 +0000

@jb

I’ve never seen any dairy products on the menu of a Chinese or Japanese restaurant, and it’s been my understanding that the Chinese in particular consider drinking the milk of a cow to be a disgusting thing that only foreigners do.

Currently, milk with enzymes added is a product in China and I saw quite a bit of advertising from one of the main companies that sells it, 蒙牛 (Méng Niú, lit. “Mongolian Cow”), when I visited. As I’m not really Chinese (despite my online pseudonym) and haven’t lived in China long term and nor have I looked over food consumption statistics, I can’t tell you much more than that.

By: Onur

Onur — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:10:04 +0000

JB, you need to know the source of your comment, as in some places (UK) Asian=South Asian, and so many would be Lactase Persistent.

In the US the Asian category includes South Asians. This may explain some part of the percentage of lactose tolerant Asian Americans.

By: Justin Giancola

Justin Giancola — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:19:35 +0000

21. yeah mine got really bad quick too! Adding to what you said about it being eat at you own risk, especially if you haven’t had the particulary dairy product before – without pills – I think if one kept the intake low to the point you aren’t getting indigestion/evacuation you might still get most of the fat and protein, but I question if having certain indigestables weakens quality of digestion overall.

No one else in my family has what I have and my father is 100% Italian which leads to: Alfredo, I think razib made a good point in that there are likely other variants of lactose tolerance.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 05:12:12 +0000

I guess the Nat Geographic isn’t a scientific publication, so precision of language isn’t a strong point.

you have too high an opinion of scientific publications.

By: Tom Bri

Tom Bri — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:37:16 +0000

Sahar and JB, check out the ice cream selection. Besides, restaurants aren’t much of a data point. I can’t speak for Chinese supermarkets, but Japanese ones certainly have significant dairy sections. This is rather far afield form Otzi though. I taught a lesson on inventions, the text claimed that ice cream was invented in China. Can’t vouch for the accuracy of that textbook though, that was in the pre-internet days in Japan so cross-referencing was tough.

Europeans began including dairy in the diet when a tiny fraction of the population was lactose tolerant. The sweeping phrase ‘couldn’t drink milk’ just bothered me. I guess the Nat Geographic isn’t a scientific publication, so precision of language isn’t a strong point.

By: Alfredo

Alfredo — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:14:46 +0000

The idea that South Europeans can’t drink raw milk is bollocks. I don’t have the “tolerance gene”, yet I drink raw milk daily, plus I put raw milk in everything: coffee, tea, cereal, mashed potatoes, pancakes, you name it. That milk is not fermented in any way. I find it mildly amusing when people try to convince me that I’m really intolerant but don’t realize it.

By: Ddraig werdd

Ddraig werdd — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 13:58:43 +0000

Justin Giancola @15
I also became lactose intolerant in the early 20′. The transition was quite fast, going from being able to drink 1L of milk in one go (at least twice a week) to barely being able to drink a sip. What is somehow funny is that I first learned that lactose intolerance exist in college ( until then I thought that it was something only spoiled American kids have – I’m from a fairly big milk drinking culture). You may be able to you still get protein/fat value from milk but you will avoid it after the first negative experiences.
About Sardinia there is something that I never quite managed to understand. How come it’s so isolated? The people are very genetically isolated, the native language is the most different Romance language ( the first to split up from Latin, some going as far as 1 century BC), for many centuries is was basically ignored by the outside world (like in the early middle ages). I know the interior is mountainous but it’s still a big island with mineral resources in the middle of a very traveled sea. So how did they manage to do it?

By: Eurologist

Eurologist — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:49:31 +0000

Yes, y-DNA is a horrible indicator of autosomal relatedness.

The example I like to give is that you can go into a village in east/central Germany and pick three men who look like clones and would test nearly as such autosomally. But, you have a good chance that one is R1a, one R1b, and one I2a2.

By: Onur

Onur — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:20:13 +0000

Jean, I think in the National Geographic article they made the comment on genetic similarities based on the autosomal genetics rather than the haplogroups. So what Dr. Egarter Vigl said in the interview seems to be irrelevant to the comment on genetic similarities in the National Geographic article; they are likely talking about two different things: the former is about the Y-DNA haplogroup while the latter is about the autosomal genetics. But as you say, things may get clearer in a few days.

By: Jean M

Jean M — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 09:39:14 +0000

>Jean, what about Sicily? In Sicily Y-DNA haplogroup G is not found more than in the average European country.
It doesn’t have to be, as long as they found some G2a4 there. Look – I don’t have all the answers. But you can see for yourself what Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl said in his interview. He didn’t mention Sicily, only Sardinia. We currently don’t know if Sicily was an error by whoever wrote the blurb, or referred to something other than G2a4, or whether G2a4 was found in Sicily. A few more days patience and things may get clearer.

By: ADL

ADL — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:52:19 +0000

Charles @9

“It is too bad there is no closer reference population as Bergamo is about 190 miles over rugged country from where ‘O’tzi was found.”

I was in the Ötzi museum in Bolzen a few months ago, and recall reading there that lots of things in Ötzi’s kit have archaeological correlates / apparent origins in the Lake Garda region. So he was quite a long way from home, but it’s a hundred miles up a wide, fertile, easily travelled (unless populated by hostile people) river valley from Lake Garda to where he was found, not much rough country involved until you reach the actual foot of the glacier.

And .. there is a village on the west bank of Lake Garda – Limone – which was not accessible by road until the 1930s, whose population has well known genetic quirks as a result of long isolation, so should be well studied and available for comparison.

By: jb

jb — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:39:53 +0000

On TV somewhere I saw that Japanese guy — the one who wins all the hot dog eating contests — chug a gallon of milk. He was racing a white guy who only had to drink 20 ounces, and he lost, but not by much. I really hope he knows about lactase pills!

(BTW, he drank the milk after eating 32 hard boiled eggs in 1 minute. His stomach looked like a balloon!)

By: Justin Giancola

Justin Giancola — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 02:52:58 +0000

From someone who is lactose intolerant – and became so at 20, so I watched it decline from normal – once you reach the point where you make no lactase there really isn’t a whole lot of dairy you can eat other than in Very small doses that doesn’t cause problems. If you push it you end up with putrid burps and farts; usually sooner bowl movements of content you just ate – often in diaharrea; signs you aren’t digesting your food properly; it’s basically evacuation. I watched the amount of food that caused these extremes symptoms get smaller and smaller, and the need for lactase pills get more consistent and higher doses. Despite what people say about aged cheese; goat or sheep milk; active bacteria yogurts; once I presumably bottomed out of lactase production it’s basically pills all the time. I can do bites and sips basically.

By: Careless

Careless — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 01:04:43 +0000

@9
It’s pretty clearly Asian Americans.

By: Onur

Onur — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:45:02 +0000

Jean, what about Sicily? In Sicily Y-DNA haplogroup G is not found more than in the average European country. So your inference that the comment on similarities with geographically isolated modern populations in Sardinia, Sicily and the Iberian Peninsula was deduced from Ötzi’s Y-DNA haplogroup does not seem to hold water.

By: Jean M

Jean M — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:14:40 +0000

In Iberia (including offshore islands) Y-DNA haplogroup G is highest in Ibiza and Portugal. Since so little testing has been done specifically of G2a4, I can’t say whereabouts in Iberia that might be found.

G2a has appeared in a number of samples of ancient DNA from Neolithic Europe. It presumably spread with the Neolithic. I don’t think anyone has suggested that it appeared in Europe earlier than that.

By: Jean M

Jean M — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:02:40 +0000

The comment on similarities with Sardinians etc was made in an interview by Dr Eduard Egarter Vigl who makes it clear that this is deduced from his Y-DNA haplogroup G2a4.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRXiwWpmSbs