Lactose intolerance is an extremely common dietary disorder where your body reacts to milk and other dairy products. Lactose intolerance occurs when your body is unable to process or break down lactose, which is the type of sugar in dairy products. Also known as lactose malabsorption, lactose intolerance isn’t a major or life-threatening condition, but it causes uncomfortable symptoms.
If you’re lactose intolerant, it’s very similar to being allergic to dairy products. Because your digestive system can’t process the sugar in milk, it can cause gassiness, bloating, and diarrhoea, similar to if you’re having an allergic reaction to something you ate. It’s possible to have a severe case of lactose intolerance, where you can’t process lactase at all, or a mild case, where you can mostly process lactase but still have a small reaction.
Because lactose intolerance can result in few symptoms, there are some people who are lactose intolerant and are not even aware of it. When the condition does result in symptoms, however, they are often uncomfortable and can worsen depending on how much lactase you have consumed. Here’s what to watch out for if you think that you or someone you know is lactose intolerant.
You’ll typically start showing these symptoms within two hours of when you consumed dairy products if you’re lactose intolerant. These symptoms happen because your body cannot fully digest or process dairy products, which means they primarily affect your digestive system.
The job of digesting the lactose found in milk and other dairy products falls to an enzyme in your small intestine, known as lactase. However, if you’re lactose intolerant, your small intestine does not have enough lactase to process the sugar, lactose, found in dairy products. As a result, lactose, which is a complex sugar, can’t be broken down into simpler sugars and absorbed into the bloodstream.
Instead of getting broken down and absorbed, lactose will move into the colon. When this happens, it results in gas, nausea, bloating, and other symptoms of lactose intolerance. While anyone can suffer from lactose intolerance, here are a few risk factors that increase your chances.
If you think that you are lactose intolerant, it’s important to get tested so that you know whether or not you need to stop consuming dairy products. To confirm or rule out lactose intolerance, your doctor will start by asking about your symptoms after consuming dairy products. If they suspect lactose intolerance, they will administer one or more of the following tests.
This is a blood test that your doctor will use to check your blood sugar levels two hours after drinking something that contains lactose. If your blood sugar level doesn’t increase, you are likely lactose intolerant.
If you have high levels of hydrogen in your breath after drinking dairy products, you are lactose intolerant.
A stool acidity test can determine how much lactic acid is present in someone’s stool after consuming dairy. This test is only used on children and infants.
The good news about lactose intolerance is that it often doesn’t cause serious or dangerous symptoms. The bad news is that there’s no real treatment or cure for lactose intolerance. In most cases, your doctor will advise you to limit or eliminate dairy products depending on how lactose intolerant you are. Another option is to take a lactase supplement in order to increase the lactase levels in your gut and small intestine. Finally, there are those who simply continue consuming lactose, despite the uncomfortable symptoms it causes.