Can you consume milk?

Do you know how milk affects you?

In many countries around the world, including Bulgaria, milk is a staple food in people's diets. Milk is present from early childhood, as part of all children's kitchens, then in many traditional foods. 

Milk is found in ice cream and frappe, which are widely used in the summer months. There is milk even in the tripe soup.

All children are born with the ability to digest milk, but with age they lose this ability. Only 20% of adults in the world retain the ability to process milk.

How does milk digestion work?

Digesting milk primarily involves breaking down lactose, the main sugar in milk, into simpler sugars that can be absorbed by the body. This process takes place in the small intestine and involves the enzyme lactase.

Lactose and lactase:

Lactose: A disaccharide composed of two simpler sugars, glucose and galactose.
Lactase: An enzyme produced by cells lining the small intestine. Lactase breaks down lactose into glucose and galactose, which can then be absorbed into the blood and used by the body for energy.
Процес на смилане на лактоза:

When a person consumes milk or milk products, lactose travels to the small intestine.
The enzyme lactase breaks down lactose into glucose and galactose.
These simpler sugars are absorbed through the intestinal wall into the blood.

Genetic mutation - do you have it?

The ability to digest milk late in life is due to a mutation in the LCT gene, which codes for lactase. To understand why only 20% of people have this mutation, we first need to look at how mutations spread in the population.

Gene mutations are random. Some of them are useful to man, according to the conditions in which he lives, some are neutral, and others are harmful. 

If a mutation is very harmful to health and life, it does not spread, because its carriers do not have the opportunity to live long. If, however, the mutation does not have such a strong effect, it can still spread through the population thanks to chance.

In the long run, the factor of randomness can help a mutation to spread, for example if in a war mostly people who carry the mutation survive by chance. This is called "neutral selection".

But along with randomness, the principles of selection are at work.

"Positive selection" - If a mutation improves a person's ability to survive, people with that mutation gain some kind of advantage in life - more access to resources, better appearance, or something else that allows them to reproduce more successfully. Over time, the mutation spreads.

"Negative selection", also known as purifying selection, occurs when a mutation is harmful, reducing the fitness of an organism. Negative selection works to remove these harmful mutations from the population.

 

 

Does the mutation help us digest milk?

In our country, as in many countries in Europe, the consumption of milk is widespread. For this reason, a mutation has spread in Europe allowing people to digest milk at a later age. It's the most recent mutation in humanity, and it's spreading extremely fast. 

At the same time, several other mutations that lead to the same effect, and allow humans to digest milk as adults, arose in parallel in Africa and Indonesia. These mutations also spread rapidly, according to the principle of positive selection.

Can I digest milk?

If you are of European descent, there is a 20% chance that you can digest milk. Think about how much ice cream is consumed every day in the summer, but for only 20% of people who enjoy the icy pleasure, it does not bring bloating, gas, or even inflammation.

To check if you are one of those 20% lucky people who can eat ice cream or milk chocolate at will, you can do a genetic test.

A DNA analysis for lactose processing is included in the Food and Diet and Gut Health analyses. Explore in detail and choose.

Анализ "Здраве на червата" с включен ДНК тест - EvaGene

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