Lactose Intolerance

[Thunder]

I was diagnosed with it many years ago. Considering my reactions to cheese and pizza, I believe I still have it.

How do you deal with it? I just bought some lactase supplement pills, which supposedly will gve me what I need to digest lactose.

Anyone use these?

[lopeyschools]

Originally Posted by Thunder

I was diagnosed with it many years ago. Considering my reactions to cheese and pizza, I believe I still have it.

How do you deal with it? I just bought some lactase supplement pills, which supposedly will gve me what I need to digest lactose.

Anyone use these?

You might want to consult a doctor before taking any supplements. I have a friend who is lactose intolerant and he buys lactose free diary products that taste virtually the same.

[Modified]

Originally Posted by Thunder

I was diagnosed with it many years ago. Considering my reactions to cheese and pizza, I believe I still have it.

How do you deal with it? I just bought some lactase supplement pills, which supposedly will gve me what I need to digest lactose.

Anyone use these?

Most of the adults in the world are lactose intolerant, so it shouldn't be a big issue. Don't drink milk or eat soft cheese - problem solved.

[Nerd]

Originally Posted by Modified

Most of the adults in the world are lactose intolerant, so it shouldn't be a big issue. Don't drink milk or eat soft cheese - problem solved.

Yet most of the adults in the world drink milk and eat cheese.

[shadron]

Originally Posted by Thunder

I was diagnosed with it many years ago. Considering my reactions to cheese and pizza, I believe I still have it.

How do you deal with it? I just bought some lactase supplement pills, which supposedly will gve me what I need to digest lactose.

Anyone use these?

Matured cheese contains no lactose; it is digested by the fermentation process. There are a number of other milk-allergies and illnesses; make sure you have eliminated them as possibilities.

Originally Posted by Nerd

Yet most of the adults in the world drink milk and eat cheese.

Then most of the people who drink milk, at least, have some discomfort doing so. According to wiki, 75% of the population of the world shows some intolerance to lactose in ages over 20 - 5% in northern Europe, up to 71% for Sicily, to more than 90% in some African and Asian countries. And that is all that lactose intolerance is - discomfort, since there is no lactase enzyme to break down the sugar; it is left to bacteria, who produce gas as a byproduct.

Lactase production in adults is one of the really clear-cut indications of natural selection at work. It is purely chemical, so there is no confusion over other effects going on. Until sapiens domesticated cattle and horses, milk was available only to children; lactase production naturally declined after childhood, so adults were intolerant. With domestication, milk became a staple and too important a source of nutrition to ignore, and herders can't stop long enough to produce fully lactose-free cheese, so among herders extended lactase production pressures began about 25,000 years ago.

[Atheist Girl]

Admittedly, I don't really "deal" with mine.. I just eat what I want, when I want, and suffer through the consequences.

Not my best decisions, I figure. I should probably look into some tolerance-management solutions.

[Moon-Spinner]

For years I thought I was lactose intolerant, but then I switched to Fat Free (Skim) Milk, and my problem went away. It turns out I have a problem with the milk fat. So as Shadron said, make sure to eliminate other possibilities.

[paximperium]

Lactaid works.
Either take that or avoid lactose.

[casebro]

You can also be allergic to casein, milk protein.

But hmmm, the lack of the enzyme needed to break down could be nurture rather than nature? If you don't get exposed to a food, won't you stop producing the enzymes needed to digest it? I know there is a strong genetic link, but all babies can digest milk. Perhaps maintaining usage keeps the enzyme production going into adulthood?

[Kaylee]

Originally Posted by casebro

Perhaps maintaining usage keeps the enzyme production going into adulthood?

Not in my case, anecdotal evidence for what it's worth.

Also FWIW, I tend to drink 100% lactose free milk (at least a couple of glasses a day). I find that leaves enough lactase enzyme in my system that I don't have to take a lactase enzyme pill (eg Lactaid Inc. sells some) when I decide to have some ice cream or something else that is diary for example.

YMMV.

Re the OP -- I agree with Shadron and Moon-Spinner and I wouldn't assume that you have lactose intolerance if you are having trouble digesting cheese. It's probably something else.

[noreligion]

Originally Posted by casebro

You can also be allergic to casein, milk protein.

But hmmm, the lack of the enzyme needed to break down could be nurture rather than nature? If you don't get exposed to a food, won't you stop producing the enzymes needed to digest it? I know there is a strong genetic link, but all babies can digest milk. Perhaps maintaining usage keeps the enzyme production going into adulthood?

Do you manufacture gas masks? I don't understand. You appear to know why most adults are lactose intolerant to some degree but then you swerve right off into woo-woo land.

[Soapy Sam]

How so?

[RecoveringYuppy]

Originally Posted by noreligion

Do you manufacture gas masks? I don't understand. You appear to know why most adults are lactose intolerant to some degree but then you swerve right off into woo-woo land.

What woo do you see? Some enzymes definitely have feedback process controlling their production. And recovery from lactose intolerance by controlled exposure seems to be speculative science rather than woo (by that I mean there is some disputed evidence for it but it's not fully studied)

[Silly Green Monkey]

He might be right, I've found that if I drink a little milk a day I can tolerate it, but if I miss a few days I get gas from a single bowl of cereal and milk. If I drink milk every day, it takes a lot more milk and cheese to affect me.

[shadron]

Originally Posted by casebro

But hmmm, the lack of the enzyme needed to break down could be nurture rather than nature? If you don't get exposed to a food, won't you stop producing the enzymes needed to digest it? I know there is a strong genetic link, but all babies can digest milk. Perhaps maintaining usage keeps the enzyme production going into adulthood?

Yes, obviously all children have lactase in order to breakdown the sugar content in their mother's milk. This normally shuts down at puberty; older people didn't need it before domestication, and it has a cost to produce, so shutting it down was a win for human genetics. It is the defeat of this shutdown process that is the mutation involved in the last 20,000 years. I imagine that there may have been some people who had it all their lives, but not very many, until domestication made it useful.

[Modified]

Originally Posted by Nerd

Yet most of the adults in the world drink milk and eat cheese.

A lot of them do, but not in high quantities. I can drink half a gallon of milk with no problems. My brother did that as a test when he first suspected he was lactose intolerant. A few hours later, he looked like he was eight months pregnant.

Aged cheese is not really a problem, as shadron pointed out. http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu...osecontent.pdf

[casebro]

I was just thinking along the lines of drugs that takers do build up a tolerance to, because theirs livers produce more of the enzymes needed to break down the drug. (see post 13)

Perhaps rather than "enzymes stop at puberty", it's a matter of "enzymes stop when milk drinking stops, as when weaned, but some people's genes do not prevent the re-start of production"? (see post 14)

[Modified]

Originally Posted by casebro

Perhaps rather than "enzymes stop at puberty", it's a matter of "enzymes stop when milk drinking stops, as when weaned, but some people's genes do not prevent the re-start of production"? (see post 14)

I know several people who became lactose intolerant around age 18. They never stopped drinking milk, they just started getting bloated. Everyone in my world used to eat cereal and milk for breakfast every day, so they didn't get too many lactose breaks.

I suppose it's possible that lactase production might increase somewhat over time in response to consuming lactose. You might also adjust to the increased intestinal gas after a few days and cramp less.

[noreligion]

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

What woo do you see? Some enzymes definitely have feedback process controlling their production. And recovery from lactose intolerance by controlled exposure seems to be speculative science rather than woo (by that I mean there is some disputed evidence for it but it's not fully studied)

ok, evolution is wrong and science knows nothing about deactivated genes.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Trying to make this another zygote thread?

[noreligion]

Originally Posted by RecoveringYuppy

Trying to make this another zygote thread?

Your the one saying that the genes are not deactivated.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Didn't say that at all. Thanks for playing.

[Miss_Kitt]

I was raised on at least one glass of milk a day, plus often a second glass and/or cereal with milk. About age 16, I stopped liking milk. I skipped as many of the daily doses as I could work my way around, or swapped them for yogurt or cheese.

Turns out I am lactose intolerant, and can't take milk in its un-curdled form at all well. We buy Lactaid milk for when we need milk and focus on mature cheeses.

[bokonon]

Originally Posted by casebro

the lack of the enzyme needed to break down could be nurture rather than nature? If you don't get exposed to a food, won't you stop producing the enzymes needed to digest it? I know there is a strong genetic link, but all babies can digest milk. Perhaps maintaining usage keeps the enzyme production going into adulthood?

Originally Posted by noreligion

I don't understand. You appear to know why most adults are lactose intolerant to some degree but then you swerve right off into woo-woo land.

The idea that continued exposure to a food might enable some individuals to continue to produce the enzymes which digest it is hardly unscientific. The lac operon in E. coli is a well-known example of exactly that. If there is no lactose available, the bacteria will not produce the lactase which digests it.

Lactase is considered to be an adaptive enzyme in other animals as well, meaning that the amount which is produced depends on the amount of lactose available.

Originally Posted by casebro

Perhaps rather than "enzymes stop at puberty", it's a matter of "enzymes stop when milk drinking stops, as when weaned, but some people's genes do not prevent the re-start of production"?

Originally Posted by noreligion

ok, evolution is wrong and science knows nothing about deactivated genes.

Or, you are wrong, and know less than you think about the science of lactose intolerance.

This abstract suggests that a "nurture" component may be at work in at least some human populations as well:

Quote:

The expression of any biologic phenomenon is related to the sum of the effects of numerous genetic or environmental factors. It would seem that in the Chinese, at least, and presumably in other ethnic groups, the major factor influencing lactase activity is the dietary content of lactose. Adaptation of intestinal lactase occurs, provided milk intake continues at the high level found in most Western European populations, beyond the normal age of weaning. If lactose intake is reduced at or shortly after weaning, then lactase activity appears to decline over a period of years. This is analogous to the postweaning decline in lactase activity found in animals.

One may dispute these conclusions (and I haven't paid to read the whole paper myself), but there does seem to be scientific research supporting the idea.

In addition, even when individuals don't produce lactase themselves, in some cases their intestinal flora may be able to be conditioned (by lactose availability) to break it down for them without causing symptoms of distress.