Building on what you learned last week about fats, we are going to talk about other nutrients, starting with milk. This first article is about the geographic distribution of the lactase persistence trait: Human lactase

Next, read about the concept of lactase persistence and the concept of race in medicine:Unkindest cup

Finally, read this brief piece on human milk carbohydrates: First human prebiotics

This week’s writing assignment will be brief:

It has been suggested that 20% of the carbohydrate content in breast milk is indigestible by the infant! It might seem paradoxical and wasteful that the mother converts easily digested fuel (glucose) into indigestible milk oligosaccharides. Why doesn’t natural selection decrease or eliminate the production of oligosaccharides in human breast milk?

No more than 1/2 page please.

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Joe Alcock

Emergency Physician, Educator, Researcher, interested in the microbiome, evolution, and medicine