If you enjoyed alcoholic beverages last weekend, you may have been indulging in the same behavior as primates — giving a whole new meaning to “monkeying around.”
According to a recent study performed by chemist Steven Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, alcohol-metabolizing enzymes first appeared in extinct primates about 10 million years ago.
“There’s a time when you are learning to walk on the ground, and at that same time, your enzymes were learning how to break down alcohol,” he said.
Benner and his colleagues resurrected proteins from rebuilding the digestive tracts of ancient primates going back about 80 million years. They discovered the ancestors that led to gorillas, chimps and humans could fully digest alcohol at the levels found in fermenting fruits.
“It’s not quite like ‘Jurassic Park’ because we don’t resurrect the whole primate, just pieces of them,” he said.
The theory contests the common view that alcohol wasn’t part of humans’ Paleolithic diet because the necessary fermentation couldn’t occur without the technologies of modern civilization such as glass and pottery.
Benner said he believed when primates descended from trees they were exposed to fallen, fermenting fruits infected with yeast. Benner said his findings surprised him, because he once thought humans didn’t drink alcohol before civilization.
Katie Ballew, a 20-year-old UF marketing sophomore, said she hopes Benner continues to build on the study.
“The entire theory sounds really interesting,” she said. “If they’re just learning now that our ancestors had been exposed to alcohol, imagine what else they can find out.”
Benner said he plans to continue his study by examining the effects of alcoholism among various populations.
