7 ms·

I'm struggling to understand this, tallness? Didn't that only happen to some European countries in the past hundred years? Because of diet? The ability to diges

I'm struggling to understand this, tallness? Didn't that only happen to some European countries in the past hundred years? Because of diet? The ability to digest milk? The Hindu civilisation is one of the oldest in the world and milk and cows are very much a first class thing, suggesting it's not jsut Europeans that could digest milk, but other culture for a very long time. Maybe I'm reading this wrong but how does this explain the colour difference between black people and Asian people? Some black people are very dark compared to other black people but from the same areas

Arnt 9y ago
WARNING! GROSS OVERSIMPLIFICATION: Potential for tallness is genetic. How much individuals realise of that potential is a matter of childhood diet and health, which has grown very good in Europe during the last 5-10 generations.
- sctb 9y ago
  > Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
bonzini 9y ago
Europeans are not a homogeneous group with respect to height; for example the Dutch tend to be taller than the Italians. According to the article, even though average height did increase recently, some disposition and possibly some difference was already there in the genes of people from different parts of Europe.
selimthegrim 9y ago
Many Indians and people of Indian descent (myself included) are in fact lactose intolerant, hence the prevalence of cheese and yogurt products.
- primaryobjects 9y ago
  Cheese and yogurt both have lactose.
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Most people can consume cheese and yogurt, but cannot consume raw milk. This is the distinction commonly meant by lactose tolerance (whether it holds up to a technical analysis or not).
    - fouc 9y ago
      I assume you meant raw pasteurized milk. I've seen anecdotal claims that drinking actual raw milk causes an increase in lactose tolerance, the hypothesis being that you lose some beneficial bacteria during the pasteurization process (not to mention various proteins are denatured).
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - toasterlovin 9y ago
        Yeah, sorry, I forgot that “raw milk” was a thing.
  - TheCoelacanth 9y ago
    Some types of cheese and yogurt have greatly reduced amounts of lactose compared to plain milk. Many people who can't tolerate plain milk can still tolerate some types of cheese and yogurt.
    - selimthegrim 9y ago
      Yes, this is what I meant.
scythe 9y ago
It's not dairy alone that causes height gain. High dietary protein correlates with production of IGF-1 which correlates with bone growth. Casein stimulates IGF-1 production somewhat more than other proteins, but not by much. Indians eat a relatively low-protein diet due to the prevalence of vegetarianism and not actually that much dairy; most of it is fermented, which, IIRC, deactivates casein.
- zeotroph 9y ago
  And, as a side note, height correlates with cancer risk "Its results found that for every extra 10cm (4in) of height, when fully grown, the risk of developing cancer increased by 18% in women and 11% in men.": https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34414446 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34414446 Mechanism unknown, but the mentioned growth factors might be the cause, similar to the increased insulin presence wrt. obesity.
  - pessimizer 9y ago
    The most convincing explanation for me is that larger people simply have more volume for cancer to start in. If you assume an equal chance for a cancer to start in any cubic centimeter of human body, you'd expect men to be more vulnerable than women to cancer, which is true. You'd also expect height differences to raise the likelihood of cancer with more height and lower it with less, and specifically you'd expect that effect to be stronger (when measured absolutely - "10cm (4in) of height", rather than proportionally to mean volume or mean height) in women, because on average, women are shorter. You'd also expect fat people to get more cancer, and native American Hispanic or East Asian descended populations in the US to get less than the US average. This is what happens. Of course there are a million other factors and all cancers are different, but in the general case you can guess the relative cancer occurrence between populations with a guess at the difference in their mean volumes. This won't keep people from trying to sell you a diet, though. Cancer is terrifying, and the idea that we can control it makes us relax. If you eat very little food, especially in childhood when you need calories to grow, you will get less cancer.
BjoernKW 9y ago
Isn't it obvious? So their heads are closer to the Sun and don't freeze up ;-) Regarding skin tones: What often registers simply as 'black' or 'Asian' from a predominantly white perspective comprises a wide variety of phenotypes and backgrounds, just as there's considerable variation in how white people from different regions or countries look.
_emacsomancer_ 9y ago
Some of this is tricky to untangle, because it's easy to intentionally or unintentionally conflate genetics/race, culture, and language, but at least culturally/linguistically the people of North India are related to the majority of the peoples of Europe. So Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Assamese, Nepali etc. are all Indo-European languages, as are Latin, Greek, Russian, Danish, Icelandic, English, Welsh etc. Comparison of early Indo-European texts strongly suggest that the first classness of cows/milk in India is a feature of (early) Indo-European cultures more generally. Indian skin colour shows a great deal of variation, including very pale and very dark and points inbetween. Which presumably correlates in part to the India having experienced a large number of migrations over a fairly long period of time. So India likely has milk-digesting ability at least in part from the same root as the European milk-digesting ability. But the (Indo-)European mutation doesn't seem to have been the only one: https://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471 https://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-... Also in Western Africa, as well as in the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Africa there seem to have been independent mutations.
- amriksohata 9y ago
  Are you referring to the Aryan invasion theory? If so that's been debunked a long time ago
  - quotemstr 9y ago
    No it wasn't
    - lallysingh 9y ago
      Alright you two. Time to pull them out and compare. References please.
      - amriksohata 9y ago
        Mostly because there is no evidence it happened infact most evidence refutes it and if anything says it happened the other way round http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-malhotra/how-europeans-misappropri_b_837376.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-malhotra/how-europeans-m...
gumby 9y ago
> suggesting it's not jsut Europeans that could digest milk, but other culture for a very long time. The same flood of people moved into Europe, the Indian subcontinent and Persia around the same time, bringing genes, language, religion etc with them. (They presumably went elsewhere too with less success.) > Maybe I'm reading this wrong but how does this explain the colour difference between black people and Asian people? It doesn't; you're reading the summary title correctly but that doesn't reflect what the study actually says. The study finds evidence that the general european population acquired a light skin and some other traits due to an influx of people carrying a bunch of genetic, linguistic and cultural traits who arrived about 4500 years ago. (Some of those same people are believed to have also headed around the same time in India and Persia, among other places). The study notes that there were already light skinned people in scandinavia around the same time. So it doesn't explain "how", just points out evidence that most European dwellers (including those in the British Isles) were dark skinned until fairly recently, unlike the dioramas one finds in museums.

Arnt 9y ago

WARNING! GROSS OVERSIMPLIFICATION: Potential for tallness is genetic. How much individuals realise of that potential is a matter of childhood diet and health, which has grown very good in Europe during the last 5-10 generations.

sctb 9y ago
> Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

bonzini 9y ago

Europeans are not a homogeneous group with respect to height; for example the Dutch tend to be taller than the Italians. According to the article, even though average height did increase recently, some disposition and possibly some difference was already there in the genes of people from different parts of Europe.

selimthegrim 9y ago

Many Indians and people of Indian descent (myself included) are in fact lactose intolerant, hence the prevalence of cheese and yogurt products.

primaryobjects 9y ago
Cheese and yogurt both have lactose.
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  Most people can consume cheese and yogurt, but cannot consume raw milk. This is the distinction commonly meant by lactose tolerance (whether it holds up to a technical analysis or not).
  - fouc 9y ago
    I assume you meant raw pasteurized milk. I've seen anecdotal claims that drinking actual raw milk causes an increase in lactose tolerance, the hypothesis being that you lose some beneficial bacteria during the pasteurization process (not to mention various proteins are denatured).
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - toasterlovin 9y ago
      Yeah, sorry, I forgot that “raw milk” was a thing.
- TheCoelacanth 9y ago
  Some types of cheese and yogurt have greatly reduced amounts of lactose compared to plain milk. Many people who can't tolerate plain milk can still tolerate some types of cheese and yogurt.
  - selimthegrim 9y ago
    Yes, this is what I meant.

scythe 9y ago

It's not dairy alone that causes height gain. High dietary protein correlates with production of IGF-1 which correlates with bone growth. Casein stimulates IGF-1 production somewhat more than other proteins, but not by much. Indians eat a relatively low-protein diet due to the prevalence of vegetarianism and not actually that much dairy; most of it is fermented, which, IIRC, deactivates casein.

zeotroph 9y ago
And, as a side note, height correlates with cancer risk "Its results found that for every extra 10cm (4in) of height, when fully grown, the risk of developing cancer increased by 18% in women and 11% in men.": https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34414446 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-34414446 Mechanism unknown, but the mentioned growth factors might be the cause, similar to the increased insulin presence wrt. obesity.
- pessimizer 9y ago
  The most convincing explanation for me is that larger people simply have more volume for cancer to start in. If you assume an equal chance for a cancer to start in any cubic centimeter of human body, you'd expect men to be more vulnerable than women to cancer, which is true. You'd also expect height differences to raise the likelihood of cancer with more height and lower it with less, and specifically you'd expect that effect to be stronger (when measured absolutely - "10cm (4in) of height", rather than proportionally to mean volume or mean height) in women, because on average, women are shorter. You'd also expect fat people to get more cancer, and native American Hispanic or East Asian descended populations in the US to get less than the US average. This is what happens. Of course there are a million other factors and all cancers are different, but in the general case you can guess the relative cancer occurrence between populations with a guess at the difference in their mean volumes. This won't keep people from trying to sell you a diet, though. Cancer is terrifying, and the idea that we can control it makes us relax. If you eat very little food, especially in childhood when you need calories to grow, you will get less cancer.

BjoernKW 9y ago

Isn't it obvious? So their heads are closer to the Sun and don't freeze up ;-) Regarding skin tones: What often registers simply as 'black' or 'Asian' from a predominantly white perspective comprises a wide variety of phenotypes and backgrounds, just as there's considerable variation in how white people from different regions or countries look.

_emacsomancer_ 9y ago

Some of this is tricky to untangle, because it's easy to intentionally or unintentionally conflate genetics/race, culture, and language, but at least culturally/linguistically the people of North India are related to the majority of the peoples of Europe. So Sanskrit, Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Assamese, Nepali etc. are all Indo-European languages, as are Latin, Greek, Russian, Danish, Icelandic, English, Welsh etc. Comparison of early Indo-European texts strongly suggest that the first classness of cows/milk in India is a feature of (early) Indo-European cultures more generally. Indian skin colour shows a great deal of variation, including very pale and very dark and points inbetween. Which presumably correlates in part to the India having experienced a large number of migrations over a fairly long period of time. So India likely has milk-digesting ability at least in part from the same root as the European milk-digesting ability. But the (Indo-)European mutation doesn't seem to have been the only one: https://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471 https://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-... Also in Western Africa, as well as in the Arabian Peninsula and Eastern Africa there seem to have been independent mutations.

amriksohata 9y ago
Are you referring to the Aryan invasion theory? If so that's been debunked a long time ago
- quotemstr 9y ago
  No it wasn't
  - lallysingh 9y ago
    Alright you two. Time to pull them out and compare. References please.
    - amriksohata 9y ago
      Mostly because there is no evidence it happened infact most evidence refutes it and if anything says it happened the other way round http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-malhotra/how-europeans-misappropri_b_837376.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-malhotra/how-europeans-m...

gumby 9y ago

> suggesting it's not jsut Europeans that could digest milk, but other culture for a very long time. The same flood of people moved into Europe, the Indian subcontinent and Persia around the same time, bringing genes, language, religion etc with them. (They presumably went elsewhere too with less success.) > Maybe I'm reading this wrong but how does this explain the colour difference between black people and Asian people? It doesn't; you're reading the summary title correctly but that doesn't reflect what the study actually says. The study finds evidence that the general european population acquired a light skin and some other traits due to an influx of people carrying a bunch of genetic, linguistic and cultural traits who arrived about 4500 years ago. (Some of those same people are believed to have also headed around the same time in India and Persia, among other places). The study notes that there were already light skinned people in scandinavia around the same time. So it doesn't explain "how", just points out evidence that most European dwellers (including those in the British Isles) were dark skinned until fairly recently, unlike the dioramas one finds in museums.