Re:The lactose-tolerance mutation
by gingerjoos on Monday October 29, 2012 @01:37AM
(#4711232)
+1 to that. Among all the people I've ever known (in India) only 2 people are lactose intolerant. Indian society has, historically, placed a lot of importance on the cow and milk. Indian mythology has rich references to milk and other dairy products for eg. Samudra Manthan [1], Krishna the cowherd [2]. If we were to consider the level of medicine practiced in India (see [3] and [4], for eg.), one would imagine that any real problem of such widespread nature would be heavily studied and discussed about.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samudra_manthan
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Krishna_with_flute.jpg
Re:The lactose-tolerance mutation
by kingsley_20 on Monday October 29, 2012 @02:02AM
(#4711274)
This is an American usage of the word "asian", which excludes subcontinentals.
Interestingly, my wife and I grew up on milk in India (to adulthood), but found ourselves mildly lactose-intolerant to American milk.
Edit: changed "includes" to "excludes".
Re:The lactose-tolerance mutation
by whatusername on Monday October 29, 2012 @07:12AM
(#4711771)
And Australian. "Asian" to me has always meant: China/Japan/Malaysia/Indonesia/Korea(s)/Thailand/Vietnam/Phillipines/PNG/Timor/Laos/Cambodia and maybe Burma.
I'm very skeptical of this. I was born and raised in Asia, and all of my peers were raised on a diet with regular milk consumption. So either we were a huge cohort of statistical outliers or that number is way, way off.
I do know that lactose intolerance rates for Asians is much higher (and consequently, less socially troublesome due to the fact that dairy is generally not a core part of cuisine), but 90% is way, way, way out there.