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Published online 5 November 2007 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2007.217
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The gene that turns breast-milk into brain food
Not all children can harness the full goodness of their mother’s milk.
Does breast-feeding a child boost its brain development and raise its intelligence? Only if the child carries a version of a gene that can harness the goodness of breast-milk, say researchers.
The results add to the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate over intelligence, by showing how the two effects can interact.
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“It is almost as though the G allele evolved as a protective genotype ..." A look at the SNP in question (rs174575) in the UCSC genome browser shows that the G allele is present in chimp and macaque; so it's the C allele that 'evolved' in the human population, not the G allele.
The news " The gene that turns breast-milk into brain food" mentions about the tests conducted by the group checking the IQ of the children in different geographical conditions. The work is indeed commendable to check on the relationship between Nature and Nurture. It is now well known that IQ is insufficient to "measure" an individual's intelligence. There are not only logical, mathematical, linguistic intelligences but also other types of intelligences. These are termed Multiple Intelligences of Dr. Howard Gardner. Also there are other theories of intelligences. It behoves the group of scientists, the present group and or groups across the globe to consider this aspect before the issue of Nature vs Nurture is settled! Dr. Srivatsa, BrainSTARS Services Pvt. Ltd.
A slight error in printing can be found in this article. FADS2 was misspelt as FASD2 in the sentence "In children who carried at least one copy of a ‘C’ allele for FASD2'.
Why is the GG type "protective" in the absence of breastmilk(the intelligences were equal)? For the GG type to be conserved, it's not enough that it allows for equal intelligence in the absence of breastmilk; it must carry along some other benefit over the Cx type.