Druppel 15-2 - Dispuut Watermanagement

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Just a matter of size... Why are the Chinese smaller then the Dutch? The interview with the three Chinese students which was published in <strong>Druppel</strong>tje 1, jaargang <strong>15</strong> reminded me of a conversation I had with a Tutsi in Burundi somewhere between 1985 and 1990. As you might know Tutsis in general are tall people. I worked together with a Tutsi whose name was Julius. One day Julius asked me if I knew why Dutch people and the Tutsis are tall and Belgium people are small. I told him that I did not know the answer. After the weekend, on Monday Julius entered my room in an excited state. He asked me politely if he could talk to me for some moment. I said yes. He told me that during the weekend he had been wondering what could be the answer to the question he asked me the week before. He told me he knew the answer. He said: "Dutch people have cows. Tutsis also have cows. Dutch people drink a lot of milk. Tutsis drink a lot of milk too. Belgium people only drink beer." At first I laughed but after a little bit of thinking I had to tell Julius that this may be the correct answer. Proud and very happy he left my room. Much later I happened to read some articles dealing with what is called the lactose intolerance. My curiosity on how this intolerance occurs was fostered by the fact that both our children, when they were babies suffered from this ailment. At that time the medical world did not exactly know why our babies were not able to drink milk in quantities considered normal for them. We had to feed them every three hours little quantities of milk. If they got too much they just vomited. The articles made clear to me that the intolerance our children suffered from was caused by an inability of their little bodies to brake down the sugar lactose. Their bodies lacked sufficient amounts of an enzyme called lactase, to break down the sugar lactose into its two simple forms. If your body does not produce sufficient amounts of this lactase, the sugar lactose is broken down in the intestines by bacterial fermentation which causes diarrhea and vomiting. And that was what our babies showed. At this point you may ask what this has to do with Tutsis and Dutchman being tall and Belgians being small? The answer is: A lot. To be able to prove that the answer is most likely correct I have to give a bit more information on the lactose intolerance. 16
Just a matter of size... It has been established that babies at birth generally have a high lactose tolerance. The mother's body takes care of that already when the baby still is in her womb. After the baby is not any more breastfed the ability of the child's body to produce lactase rapidly diminishes. The rate of this decreasing production of lactase however is very markedly genetic. Of the children of the Caucasian race around 5% show this decrease of the production of lactase. By children of Asian decent however this is around 95%! In Europe this percentage of people being lactose intolerant increases going from north to south. For Greeks this percentage is between 50 and 60 %.A Greek does not drink milk but he does eat cheese. No wonder, for digesting cheese you don't need the lactase! Going from north to south in Europe the people become smaller and smaller. Asians who are predominantly lactose intolerant, in general are smaller than North Europeans. So, there is a strong correlation between people being tall and being able to produce lactase. Julius was right! You may ask why there exists this racial difference in the production of lactase. My answer is speculative. I can not prove it. At the time Europe got populated after the last ice age, the people lived in harsh circumstances. They most likely were much dependent on the products of their cattle. They surely let their children drink cow, sheep and goat milk. Maybe many children got sick and died. Only those who did not have the lactose intolerance survived. And gradually almost the whole population became lactose tolerant. And as dairy products otherwise are very healthy they started to grow tall. The experience that dairy products are healthy for young people of northern Europe has had some nasty consequences. In the last century, at the time of the great famines in Africa, The Netherlands and other countries have send large quantities of powdered milk to Africa. It is a fact that many children have died getting diarrhea and ultimately by drying out, after it was tried to nourish them by the milk made from the powder. These children showed lactose intolerance. They were no Tutsi's. So my dear Chinese students don't try to let the children you eventually get to become as tall as the Dutch children by feeding them milk. That would be disastrous. There exists however other foodstuffs which might give the result you want. Ask a specialist. Prof. Ir. J.B.M. Wiggers 17
Page 2 and 3: Vitens is het grootste waterbedrijf
Page 4 and 5: Inhoudsopgave Van de redactie 3 Sym
Page 6 and 7: Waterkolom GRACE en het zakkende gr
Page 8 and 9: Interview Van de Giesen Alweer een
Page 10 and 11: Interview Van de Giesen Gaat u zich
Page 12 and 13: Water Resource Management Willem Ma
Page 14 and 15: Hydrology which simulates the terre
Page 18 and 19: Gezondheidstechniek Stefan Geilvoet
Page 20 and 21: Onderwijs Nieuws uit de onderwijsde
Page 22 and 23: Ingezonden Artikel Ingezonden artik
Page 24 and 25: Legionellose Onderzoek in 1982-1985
Page 26 and 27: De vakantiecursus Vakantiecursus 20
Page 28 and 29: Waterdicht 28
Page 30: Adverteerdersindex KIWA 2 Tauw 11 H

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