Researchers have found that the ancient inhabitants of Europe drank milk safely, despite the fact that they suffered from lactose intolerance. This conclusion was made by scientists from the University of Bristol in the UK.
A study by more than 100 scientists showed that ancient Europeans drank milk in both childhood and adulthood, although they suffered from lactose intolerance, that is, they were not able to digest it. And because of this, with a high degree of probability, they had severe flatulence and stomach cramps. It took humans thousands of years to start taking lactose. Production of this enzyme, which breaks down the sugar in milk, usually stops when children become adults.
Nursing mothers need to drink milk too
But over the past thousand years, the ability to digest milk in adulthood, which used to be very rare in the human genome, has become quite widespread. This was due to the domestication of many wild animals and the consumption of milk on a regular basis. However, a new study has shown that people drank milk thousands of years ago – long before they acquired the ability to digest it.
What happens if milk is removed from the diet
Scientists used ancient earthenware with traces of milk, which made it possible to genetically trace milk consumption around the world over the past 9,000 years. It is estimated that lactose tolerance became common around 1000 BC, about 4,000 years after the lactose gene was first discovered in adults. And this means that for thousands of years the use of dairy products has already been widespread among people, although most of them suffered from bloating after one sip. (READ MORE) 
University of Bristol
Medicine
belongs to the group “ red-brick universities” (i.e., originally polytechnic colleges). Received a Royal Charter in 1909