Scientists have figured out when humans fell in love with carbs long-held belief now debunked

A new study published on Thursday determined that humanity’s modern-day adoration for carbs may actually predate even the emergence of the Neanderthals.It has been assumed that the earliest humans had to indulge in a protein-heavy diet to get through the grueling days of hunting, scavenging and evading predators.

However, a new study published by the journal Science debunks this long-held belief.The study points to a specific gene that enabled humans to digest starches more easily by breaking them down into simple sugars that can be used for energy.

These genes continued to duplicate long before the rise of agricultureResearchers at The Jackson Laboratory in Farmington, Conn., and the University of Buffalo in New York studied the genomes of 68 ancient humans.The team focused on a gene called AMY1, which allows humans to break down complex carbohydrate starches in the mouth by producing the enzyme amylase.Almost all modern humans have multiple copies of AMY1, but how many varies from person to person.

Geneticists have struggled to determine exactly how and when the gene began to expand — which ties back to when eating starches became advantageous to human health.“The main question that we were trying to answer was, when did this duplication occur? So that’s why we started studying ancient genomes,” Feyza Yilmaz, an associate computational scientist at The Jackson Laboratory, told CNN.

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Never miss a story.“Previous studies show that there’s a correlation between AMY1 copy numbers and the amount of amylase enzyme that’s released in our saliva.

We wanted to understand whether it’s an occurrence that is corresponding to the advent of agriculture.This is … a hot question.”The researchers found that h...