AMAZING! Scientists uncover origin of humanity's love for carb-laden diets, debunks long-held belief
Humanity's deep-rooted love for carbohydrates may date back much further than our species itself, according to a groundbreaking new study.
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Humanity's deep-rooted love for carbohydrates may date back much further than our species itself, according to a groundbreaking new study. Challenging the age-old stereotype of ancient humans surviving solely on meat-heavy diets, this research delves into the ancient history of our species' affinity for starchy foods—revealing it predates even the advent of agriculture.
For years, the prevailing image of our ancestors feasting on mammoth steaks painted a picture of a protein-rich diet as the fuel behind our large brain development. However, emerging archaeological evidence suggests a very different story—one where ancient humans savored carbs like roasted tubers, starch-rich foods detected through remnants of bacteria embedded in prehistoric teeth.
According to CNN report, in a study published in Science, researchers have now found the first genetic evidence of early carb-centric diets. The team traced the evolution of a gene responsible for breaking down starch into simple sugars, uncovering that these adaptations occurred long before agriculture took hold. This study suggests that the evolution of this gene may stretch back hundreds of thousands of years, well before Homo sapiens or Neanderthals split into distinct species.
Scientists from The Jackson Laboratory in Connecticut and the University of Buffalo examined the genomes of 68 ancient humans, focusing on the AMY1 gene. This gene plays a pivotal role in producing the enzyme amylase, allowing humans to digest complex carbohydrates, from bread to pasta. Without this enzyme, these starchy foods would remain indigestible. The study’s findings indicate that the AMY1 gene underwent duplications long before the dawn of farming—highlighting that early humans were already primed to process carbohydrates.
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“The main question that we were trying to answer was, when did this duplication occur? So that’s why we started studying ancient genomes,” explained Feyza Yilmaz, the study’s lead author and associate computational scientist at The Jackson Laboratory.
By analyzing these ancient genomes, the researchers found that even hunter-gatherers from 45,000 years ago had four to eight copies of AMY1, indicating that Homo sapiens were consuming starch well before the agricultural revolution reshaped human diets. Even more remarkable, the study revealed that Neanderthals and Denisovans—our extinct human relatives—also possessed multiple copies of this gene, suggesting that a common ancestor had already evolved this trait as early as 800,000 years ago.
This genetic adaptation likely occurred randomly, but it offered early humans a unique advantage in digesting starch-rich foods, providing critical energy as they adapted to new environments.
The findings also shed light on a significant increase in AMY1 gene copies over the last 4,000 years, likely a product of natural selection as human diets shifted toward agriculture and grain consumption.
The study “provided compelling evidence” of how our bodies adapted to convert tough-to-digest starch into easily accessible sugars, fueling human evolution, noted Taylor Hermes, an anthropology professor at the University of Arkansas. Hermes further emphasized that the increase in AMY1 genes may have been essential for the brain’s energy needs during rapid growth periods in human evolution.
“The authors finding that an increased copy number of the amylase gene, which results in a greater ability to break down starch, may have emerged hundreds of thousands of years before Neanderthals or Denisovans gives more credit to the idea that starches were being metabolized into simple sugars to fuel rapidly growing brain development during human evolution,” he said.
While the exact timing of AMY1 gene duplication remains uncertain, the study opens new doors in our understanding of human dietary evolution. Christina Warinner, a Harvard University anthropologist not involved in the research, praised the study's revelations as "tantalizing clues" about humanity's long-standing relationship with carbohydrates.
“This study’s genomic sleuthing is helping to finally time stamp some of those major milestones, and it is revealing tantalizing clues about humanity’s long love affair with starch,” Warinner said.
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