Question

Anthropology/Human Biology question: What are some examples of nutritional adaptations in humans?

Answer 1

Answer of the provided question is as follows-

Human eats food to get nutritions that is actually necessary for their growth and survival. But, The food habbit of ancient human was different from the humans of recent time. And, in recent time also, depending on availability of food and other environmental factors people from different area of world has a  different food habbit.So, various nutritional adaptations are seen in humans such as-

Milk has carbohydrates,proteins and lipid as its components.The carbohydrate that is present in milk is lactose. A enzyme called lactase is necessary to break the lactose into glucose and galactose.Because, lactose can only be absorbed after it's breakdown into glucose and galactose.In infants lactase is present so they can easily digest the milk but in adult production of lactase is greatly reduced and as a result of it, adult cannot digest milk properly and several adverse effects of indigestion are observed in their body. And this lactose intolerance is common in most of the people over the world because, in ancient time people mainly ate animal meet and plant products but they did not have much availability of milk . So, there was no necessity of producing the enzyme lactase and this was naturally selected and adapted in most of the human populations. But, some of the population in the world who rear various domestic animals such as cow, goats etc they have much more availability of milk and it is their main food source and that is why they keep on producing the enzyme lactase throughout their lifetime.So, this lactase persistence is adapted in such populations.

Another example of nutritional adaptation in human is seen in populations who consume much alcohol . The population who uses alcohol as one of their important ingredients in diet , they can metabolize alcohol much more effeiciently than the people who do not consume alcohol on a daily basis.