How do you recognize lactose intolerance? Symptoms and tests to do – time.news

2023-05-21 09:50:38

Of Elena Meli

We learned to drink milk to survive famines and infections about 5,000 years ago. Still, however, there are still many people who do not have the enzyme to digest lactose. In some cases, milk can be reintroduced gradually

It was not the higher consumption of milk and dairy products associated withanimal husbandry to bring up the gene that made us able to digest lactose even as adults: the factor that put the turbo on evolution, spreading lactose tolerance in a large number of humans in just over 4 thousand years, was the need to survive famines and infections.

Why do you become lactose intolerant

This was discovered by English researchers who traced the use of milk over the past 9,000 years: In times of poor harvests or when diseases spread, those who could not tolerate it succumbed and this allowed lactose tolerance to quickly be selected to stick. Lactose tolerance depends onlactase enzymewhich is produced in the small intestine and breaks down lactose into two monosaccharides, galactose and glucoseso as to make its absorption possible; if the deficient or missing enzyme lactose builds up in the intestines where it attracts water and becomes food for bacteria that ferment it producing gas. In those who are tolerant, the expression of the gene for the enzyme does not decrease or disappear in the course of life, as instead happens in the intolerant; although the evolutionary pressure due to famines and infections has meant that today many are able to consume lactose without problems,
however, the intolerant are numerous

.

Symptoms of intolerance

In Italy, a more or less accentuated lactase deficit is estimated in approx 50 percent of the population, even if sonly 30-50 percent of intolerant people have i symptoms that is to say bloating, pain, wind, constipation or diarrhoea of variable intensity also according to the more or less important lactase deficiency. Symptoms manifest themselves thirty minutes to two hours later the consumption, also according to the food with which lactose is consumed: if, for example, it is introduced together with carbohydrates, especially simple ones, the gastric emptying is rapid and thus the onset of disorders.

Lactose intolerance: the test for diagnosis

If you suspect you are intolerant, the breath test the only test for a correct diagnosis. very simple, just exhale in a balloon after consuming lactose: the presence of gases indicative of the inability to digest this sugar is thus recorded in the breath. There is also a test for analyzing the lactase gene, which evaluates whether you have both copies of the gene mutated and therefore there is a high probability of developing intolerance because its expression will decrease over time; it is not an alternative but complementary and can be useful in children, if they cannot perform the breath test well.

You can educate yourself about lactose

Lactase for an inducible enzyme

that is, the body also produces it based on consumption of the food for which it is used: if we completely stop eating dairy products, the amount of lactase is slowly reduced; then, if they are suddenly reintroduced, the symptoms of intolerance may appear because the quantity of enzyme is not sufficient to digest them. Also for this theoretically possible to restore lactase productioneven if it is not an immediate process: it is necessary to gradually increase the dose of lactose to induce the synthesis of the enzyme starting from minimal quantities of milk with meals, two or three times a day.

May 21, 2023 (change May 21, 2023 | 09:50)

© Time.News