Our love of carbohydrates goes back much further than the first humans, new research suggests. Additionally, it has been reported that our ability to digest carbohydrates, as opposed to meat proteins, may play a more important role in larger brain development than thought. CNN. This insight is science By researchers at the University at Buffalo. They looked at the DNA of ancient humans and focused on the salivary gene AMY1, which produces an enzyme called amylase that begins to break down starchy foods in the mouth.
As it turns out, it turns out that human ancestors had multiple copies of the gene at least 800,000 years ago, which is reportedly hundreds of thousands of years earlier than thought. NBC News. “That predates not only agriculture but also the migration of people from Africa,” said co-author Omar Gokmen. They point out that going back 800,000 years means the gene was first replicated before humans split from Neanderthals, who also had the gene. health day. A further proliferation of copies of this gene appears to have occurred at the dawn of agriculture, about 12,000 years ago.
Coverage range smithsonian museum He said the discovery “raises new questions about the diet and lifestyle of our hunter-gatherer ancestors,” adding that a diet high in meat and protein may have driven ancient brain growth. There is. “Carbohydrates, rather than meat, probably provided humans with the energy they needed to develop larger brains,” writes Sarah Kuta. (More on carbohydrates.)
