how come a lot of people are lactose intolerant if everyone started off by drinking milk as a baby?

Question

how come a lot of people are lactose intolerant if everyone started off by drinking milk as a baby?

In: 327

Answer 1

Genetics factors into who can tolerate milk as an adult.

If your ancestry is to people’s who lived in temperate-to-cold climates, then you likely have the gene to digest milk.

This is because cows were an excellent way of converting vast barren lands (which cows feed off of) into meat and milk. People who lived closer to the equator could reap the land year round. In colder climates, cows make good use of otherwise less nourishing grasslands and steppe.