The Reason behind Lactose Intolerance

Have you ever experience abdominal cramp, diarrhea, bloating, nausea, vomiting, flatulence and allergic rash after the consumption of milk and other dairy products?

 It is called lactose intolerance. Lactose is the main sugar/ carbohydrate present in milk. Normally lactose is digested into glucose and galactose by the lactase enzyme in the digestive track and absorb into the body. But in the lactose intolerance condition, lactase enzyme is not produced or produced in a very little amount. Therefore lactose digestion is not taken place properly. In this case, lactose attracts extra amount of water into the digestive track and leads to diarrhea. When lactose comes to colon, gut bacteria and water cause fermentation of milk that results gases and acid. That is the reason behind abdominal cramp, diarrhea, bloating, vomiting and flatulence which are called lactose intolerance symptoms.

To avoid these conditions, what can we do?

 You can reduce milk and dairy product consumption by increasing consumption of alternative foods which give minerals and other nutrients present in milk to avoid nutrient deficiencies. But frequent consumption of lactose containing foods in smaller quantities will facilitate a chance to gut bacteria to build up the tolerance against lactose. In day today life ice cream and other dairy products cannot be missed as they are preferred by everyone. So you can make a change…. Lactase enzyme can be taken as a supplement from outside. It will help to lactose properly while suppressing difficulties. Lactase enzyme supplement can be taken as a tablet before eating or applied as a powder directly into dairy products. But fermented dairy products such as yoghurt contains compared to less amount of lactose due to lactose is converted into lactic acid by lactobacillus bacteria in it. As well as, foods having probiotics and prebiotics are suitable for people with lactose intolerance as they are good to improve gut health.

Reason behind Lactose Intolerance - Video clip