While lactose intolerance is not a serious condition, it can cause abdominal pain, diarrhea, bloating, nausea, and other problems. In order to avoid these problems, people suffering from lactose intolerance tend to avoid milk and other dairy products. However, it is important to understand that dairy products are an important source of vitamins and minerals like calcium, Vitamin B and Vitamin D, and should not be avoided completely.
Lactose intolerance is a common condition that affects a large number of people in India and other countries. Most people are familiar with the fact that lactose intolerance is caused by the deficiency of lactase enzyme in the body. But
Colic is a condition manifested as inconsolable crying episodes in infants and associated with adverse effects such as maternal depression, child abuse and deterioration in the child’s quality of life. The exact etiology of IC remains elusive; however, a number of non-gastrointestinal and gastrointestinal factors have been implicated. Transient lactose intolerance has been identified as a possible causative factor in IC. However, restriction of lactose from the infants diet is not considered to be feasible as it can limit calcium absorption. Lactase supplementation has been considered beneficial for the management of symptoms associated with lactose intolerance.
Nourishment for mammalian infants in the first few months of life comes only in the form of milk, which essentially consists of an array of proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates composed of lactose and other important oligosaccharides. However, in many individuals the tolerance for this kind of food is seen to decrease in adulthood. Lactose intolerance is an age-old clinical condition which has been extensively analysed scientifically; herein the characteristic signs and symptoms of pain, abdominal distention, flatulence, and diarrhea occur after lactose consumption. This disaccharide, present in milk and dairy products, is hydrolysed into glucose and galactose by lactase enzyme thus requiring lactase activity in the small intestinal brush border for its absorption.
People with lactose intolerance are unable to fully digest the sugar (lactose) in milk. This digestion is brought about by enzyme lactase. Due to absence of lactase,lactose cannot be digested, as a result, people can have diarrhea, gas and bloating after eating or drinking dairy products. The condition, which is also called lactose malabsorption, is usually harmless, but its symptoms can be uncomfortable. A deficiency of lactase — an enzyme produced in your small intestine — is usually responsible for lactose intolerance. Many people have low levels of lactase but are able to digest milk products without problems. If you're actually lactose intolerant, though, your lactase deficiency leads to symptoms after you eat dairy foods.
The clinical symptoms in lactose intolerance are mostly attributable to passage of most of the dietary lactose in its unaltered form through small intestine into a colon ; in the colon , this unaltered lactose in subjected to rapid metabolization by the colonic bacteria. As a result, individual intolerant of lactose typically experience gastric symptoms, such as abdominal pain and bloating, excessive flatus and diarrhea due to excessive fluid and gas formation in the bowel following ingestion of lactose containing food like milk and milk product.
Lactose intolerance is defined as experience of a myriad of gastrointestinal symptoms following an intake of lactose-containing food products. The worldwide estimates that suggest only about 35% of people to be lactase persistent, there is high prevalence of lactase non-persistence in India. Lactose intolerance is therefore a common condition seen in the general population and patients, in fact representing the most prevalent intestinal malabsorption disorder and most common reason for limiting milk and dairy products consumption. In affected individuals, manifestations of lactose intolerance can be disabling enough to interfere with daily quality-of-life
