Isn't it most associated with that ethnic group? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lactase_persistence_...
Even a broken clock can be right...
To be honest I found the actual report from the original study to be far more enlightening.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20682-3
From their discussion section
>Our study provides a rare opportunity to link the LP status of specific ancient individuals with direct evidence for their consumption of milk, drawing on combined palaeoproteomic and archaeogenetic investigations. This research clearly demonstrates that ancient African individuals who do not appear to have had a genetic adaptation enabling lactose digestion were nonetheless drinking milk. As noted, not all individuals or populations who drink milk have LP, and ancient dairy consumption may have been enabled by fermentation practices10,11 or gut microflora12, as is suggested for populations today.
That's actually pretty awesome. Yet the news article wipes it away with a snide comment about white supremacy.
Why not explain how Africans seemingly adapted to drinking milk in ways that were different to Europeans? Why not talk about the possibilities this opens into more research and just how adaptable the human body really is?
It turns what's actually a pretty amazing discovery into some political baiting nonsense and I really dislike how that kind of thing is creeping it's way even into scientific reporting.
All hacks are Russia or North Korea. Rigor and science (in some examples) perpetuate racism, etc. but it DOES generate clicks, that’s for sure.
IMO the statement doesn't undercut the points expressed in the discussion section. I don't understand the kneejerk oversensitivity to it among people who ostensibly are able to read these types of articles critically and dispassionately.
It's also worth mentioning that certain ethnic groups in East Africa feature hereditary lactase persistence (via a different SNP from European and Asian LP groups).
Because I expect reporting on scientific reports and journal articles to be critical and dispassionate. I expect it to report the methods, results and discussion from the original paper and summarize it in a succinct easy to understand way, not inject political statements referencing the nonsense rantings of idiots on the internet that have no business being in a report about a discovery in which the authors themselves completely refrain from referencing any such thing.
There's plenty of ways they could have brought those 'theories' into the discussion, had they chosen, without ridiculous emotionally driven, inflammatory language.
For the same reason why posting
'$Topic is just white supremacy'
Is not an acceptable HN comment. It adds literally nothing to the discussion and incites emotionally driven thinking.
The article was sufficiently neutral; your hysteria is the only issue.
Food is politics. Until we're back to scavenging from the nutrient-supporting biome in our immediate vicinity - as long as diet is subject to policy and public sentiment - what is and isn't available to eat and how it interacts with our bodies is inherently both scientific and political, and both deserve mention at points of intersection like this.
Besides, the ability to drink milk developed independently more than once during human history.
It’s one of those things somewhat associated with what is considered race, but not all that closely. Further, the underlying data is very messy.
If you mean right now and in terms of total number of people probably India. If you’re talking historic rates it varies depending on time period and how local your talking about. With villages in Asia, Europe, and Africa hitting ~100% at various points.
If you want a national average today then the UK.
Seems counterproductive.
It was unheard of in native Americans and Canadians, and very rare in eastern Asians.
I have no idea about prevalence in Africa, must be nonzero.
But even so, I gather that people in Southern European countries like Italy don't generally tend to drink milk, apart from added to coffee, and even then only in the mornings.
https://mydearitalia.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/italian-cappuc...
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9285380/ https://www.bordbia.ie/industry/news/food-alerts/lactose-fre...
The high genotypic frequency of lactose persistence in Northern Europe and Saudi Arabia is an interesting and incomplete story about human adaptation to geography and climate (perhaps droughts and harsh winters meant that people were not be able to wait for cheese or yogurt and need to consume large amounts of raw milk?) Another crucial part of the mix is that there is much less genetic diversity in Europe and the Middle East than in Africa.
Regardless, if you read the linked NYT article, it’s clear that a bunch of racist weirdos are stumbling across graphs like the ones you presented and are treating “the ability to drink milk without getting queasy” as another paper bag test. Although it’s ridiculous and abhorrent, such ideas wouldn’t be sustainable if people weren’t convinced pseudoscience was the real thing.
Don't shoot the messenger.