They experience bloating, gas, and diarrhea after ingesting dairy products. Even while lactose malabsorption, another name for the condition, is frequently not hazardous, some people may have unpleasant symptoms. Those who are lactose intolerant are unable to effectively digest lactose, the sugar in milk.
Lactose intolerance is often caused by insufficient amounts of the enzyme lactase, which is generated in the small intestine. You can digest milk products even if your lactase levels are low. However, if your levels are too low, you develop lactose intolerance and experience symptoms after consuming dairy products.
Small intestine and colon
The digestive system, which breaks down the food you ingest, is made up of the small intestine and colon. Dietary nutrients are absorbed by the intestines. What the intestines are unable to absorb travels farther along the digestive system and is discharged as a stool when you urinate.
Most lactose-intolerant people can manage their condition without completely giving up dairy products.
Symptoms
The signs and symptoms of lactose intolerance frequently appear between 30 minutes and two hours after ingesting or imbibing drinks that contain lactose. Typical symptoms and warning indications include:
Diarrhea
nausea and occasionally vomiting
stomach pain
Bloating Gas
When to see a doctor
If you have lactose intolerance symptoms regularly after consuming dairy products, especially if you are concerned about receiving adequate calcium, schedule an appointment with your doctor.
Causes
When your small intestine doesn’t generate enough lactase, an enzyme needed to break down lactose, you develop lactose intolerance.
Normally, lactase converts the milk sugar into glucose and galactose, two simple sugars that enter the bloodstream through the mucosa of the stomach.
In the absence of the enzyme lactase, lactose from your meal enters your colon as opposed to being metabolized and absorbed. Regular bacteria and undigested lactose interact in the gut to cause the signs and symptoms of lactose intolerance.
There are three types of lactose intolerance. Each kind is caused by a different source of lactase deficiency.
primary intolerance to lactose
The most typical kind of primary lactose intolerance is present from birth in all affected individuals. Lactase is required by infants, who obtain all of their nutrients from milk.
The quantity of lactase that children generate often decreases when they switch from milk to other foods, but it typically stays high enough to digest the amount of dairy in a typical adult diet. Primary lactose intolerance is characterized by a significant decline in lactase synthesis by maturity, which makes milk products challenging to digest.
Lactose intolerance that develops later
This type of lactose intolerance happens when your small intestine reduces lactase synthesis as a result of an infection, an accident, or small intestine surgery. Diseases including intestinal infection, celiac disease, bacterial overgrowth, and Crohn’s disease are linked to secondary lactose intolerance.
Though it may take some time, treating the underlying disease may help to reduce signs and symptoms and restore lactase levels.
Developmental or innate lactose intolerance
Babies with lactose intolerance brought on by a deficiency of lactase are unusual, but not impossible. Because this condition is inherited in an autosomal recessive manner from one generation to the next, both the mother and the father must pass on the same gene mutation for a kid to be afflicted. Due to low levels of lactase, premature newborns might potentially develop lactose intolerance.
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Risk factors
You or your kid may be more susceptible to lactose intolerance due to the following factors:
increasing age. When lactose intolerance first becomes apparent in adults. The disease is uncommon in newborns and young children.
Ethnicity. Those that are lactose intolerant predominately come from African, Asian, Hispanic, and American Indian backgrounds.
delivery before term. Preterm newborns may have lower levels of lactase because lactase-producing cells in the small intestine don’t begin to develop until late in the third trimester.
tiny intestinal illnesses. Among other small intestine disorders, bacterial overgrowth, celiac disease, and Crohn’s disease can cause lactose intolerance.
certain cancer therapies. Your chance of developing lactose intolerance rises if you’ve received radiation therapy for stomach cancer or intestinal side effects from chemotherapy.
