Re: evolution and diet

From: estropico@virgilio.it
Date: Thu Apr 24 2003 - 03:16:34 MDT

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    From: "estropico" <estropico@virgilio.it>
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    Going back for a moment to the very first message of this thread. I think that
    question went unanswered:

    Damien Sullivan <phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

    > And is it speculated that American Indians and aborigines have
    > less tolerance for alcohol since they're new to it. (They have a
    > weakness to it, but whether that's cultural or metabolic I don't know.)

    Well, the explanation I have *heard of* refers to East Asians rather than
    American Indians and aborigines and it has to do with the elimination of
    pathogens from water.

    The theory goes that in Europe people discovered brewing, relying on the
    alcohol content of beer to do the job, while in the Far East people discovered
    tea, relying on the boiling of water to do probably a better job. Given that
    beer consumption was not restricted to adults in those times, selection
    encouraged the spread of genes for alcohol detoxifying enzymes in the
    liver. In other words, so the theory goes, infants that were given water were
    more likely to die due to infection than those that were given beer were
    likely to die due to liver problems.

    When I heard of this, on some tv program, I remembered that ancient romans
    used to drink their wine diluted with water. I guess what their were actually
    doing was disinfecting their water with wine.

    Cheers,
    Fabio

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