Lactose intolerance, milk products, family members, and ethnicity

My father's Finnish family have a tendency to be lactose intolerant; only my brother can stand it, though my half-Polish/Czech grandmother is fine, too. Funnily enough, the consumption of dairy in Finland is well above average, but genetic Finns tend to be disproportionately intolerant to dairy.

I'm moderately allergic to it, but as a vegan, that doesn't matter.

 

I don't have any known friends/relatives with it.

It might be part of our everyday meals(especially breakfast with cheese and others with yoghurt/ayran) includes dairy products. Only ones I know avoiding cheese or milk are due to their taste.

Yoghurt especially treated like kinda magical medicine in many cases.

 

I'm moderately intolerant, but it's irrelevant to me as a vegan. Before, I could drink it without massive problems.

It strikes me as a very strange thing to consume. After all, it's designed for calves.

 

American of Mexican descent here, with quite heavy native ancestry, so like a lot of my Asian friends, have a low tolerance to alcohol, lactose. I'm guessing it might be different for those who have heavy European ancestry. It doesn't stop me from consuming whole milk, even if I regret it afterwards.

 

My grandmother of Norwegian ancestry is intolerant of it. The rest of our family show signs that we'd probably be better off without it, and I can imagine it'd increase to intolerance eventually.


Honestly, I think it's more that cow's milk wasn't intended for human consumption, than anything.

 

Oh, I forgot about ethnicity. I'm more or less half scottish, on my mother's side. My mother is lactose intolerant. My father's side is murkier, but there's some english and welsh in there.

 

It could have something to do with genetics but basing from my own experience, my family do not have problem when it comes to anything that contains dairy except for me. I have history of getting stomach aches right after I drink milk but it's still not stopping me from craving for a cookies and creme ice cream

 

My ethnicity is Portuguese/Italian. I only developed lactose intolerance later in life. I can't have milk or ice cream. For cheese I could do a single slice on a sandwich, but more than that is a miserable idea. Both of my brothers mentioned recently they feel like they're starting to get a little trouble with dairy, as well.

 

Is having an allergy to cow's milk considered to be the same as being lactose intolerant?

 

Not necessarily. You can be allergic to other things in milk, and if it's only one type, then it's likely that it's not lactose intolerance.

 

How does lactose intolerance work.

Milk contains 'milk sugar' which is called lactose. The enzyme lactase can digest it. Humans who have evolved to drink milk (those who herded cattle or other livestock) normally have the gene to produce lactase. Those humans who haven't got ancestors who evolved with livestock don't have the gene, so they don't produce lactase and can't digest milk.

Yes, it's confusing:
Lactose = Milk sugar.
LactAse = Enzyme which converts milk sugar.
Lactose intolerance = Not having the gene for lactase, so not being able to digest milk sugar.

Who have the gene for lactose digestion?

Most people in Europe and from the Eurasian steppes have ancestors who lived with livestock, so those have the gene for lactase. However, a gene can be extremely common in a population, but there will be always some people who lack the gene, because chance is a big part of evolution. This is why some Europeans can be lactose intolerant (not having the gene to produce lactase).

Immigration and genes.

Latin americans aren't a clear genetic population. Some countries have a population which consist of mainly Spanish or other European immigrants, some countries are mainly native, some W-African (slave trade) or a mix between it. If the population consists of mainly European immigrants, having the gene for lactase is common and these people can consume milk without problems. If the population doesn't consist of mainly European immigrants, they won't have the lactase gene and are lactose intolerant.

Cheese and yogurt.

Cheese and yogurt are fermented milk products. That means bacteria have converted the milk to something else. Most of these bacteria gain energy by converting lactose into something else. Because there's no lactose anymore, people without the lactase gene can often eat those things, but can't drink milk.

Lactose intolerance and milk allergy.

Often people call lactose intolerance an allergy. It's not, you just can't digest the milk sugar. Because the lactose stays in your intestines, bacteria begin to digest the lactose instead, creating gas and discomfort.

An allergy is a inflammation reaction towards some material. Your immune system attacks that material even though it's harmless. You can have an allergy towards some ingredients of milk, often the proteins in milk can cause an allergy.

---------- Post added 1st Jul 2014 at 02:52 PM ----------

Why do you get lactose intolerance when you're older?

Female humans produce milk for their babies (in rare exceptional circumstances males can produce milk too btw). This milk also contains lactose. This means that babies must have the ability to digest lactose and therefore have the lactase gene. However, because most adults in human history (apart from those populations I mentioned earlier) don't drink milk, they don't need the lactase gene anymore when they get older.

Producing lactase costs energy for humans . Because it would be wasteful to lose energy to produce an enzyme you no longer need, natural selection has resulted in the following solution: Babies have an active lactase gene, but when they get older it gets deactivated. This way humans would only produce lactase when they need it, but stop producing it when they no longer breast-feed.

Most European populations have a gene which prevents this deactivation, so they don't get lactose intolerant later in life.

 

I'm Chinese.
For some reason (at least to my knowledge), cheese and ice cream are fine, but milk not so much.
However, I'm pretty sure I'm not lactose intolerant. I just think cow's milk tastes strange.

 

I'm Vietnamese, but I don't have problems with digesting lactose.

My older sister has lactose intolerance. Not sure about the rest of my family members.