Why Most of Us Shouldn’t Drink Milk - Issue 41: Selection
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Most people will remember the clever Got Milk ads, which slapped milk mustaches on celebrities in an effort to get Americans drinking dairy. Milk is sold as something healthy and wholesome—after all, isn’t drinking milk the most natural thing in the world? But actually, only a third of adults worldwide can even digest the stuff. The rest of us—the silent majority—are lactose intolerant, meaning we’ve lost our lactase, the enzyme that makes milk digestion possible. While all humans are born with the ability to digest milk (hence, breastfeeding), only a few retain it into adulthood. When and how did this division arise? Follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, he tracks down the biological and cultural history of our (...)