The Link Between Gender, Genetics, Age and Lactose Intolerance

This article is talking about the effect of genetics, age and gender on being lactose intolerance or not. Based on this article I learned that quite a lot of people are actually lactose intolerant and that means that they can not have milk or almost any other dairy because their bodies can not digest the sugar in dairy that is called lactose. Researches and studies show us that being lactose intolerant has a lot to do with genetics, age and gender in fact this article shows us that this fact is more common in women comparing to men. Doctors can test you lactose tolerance by using the lactose tolerance test that is done by a glucometer that can exactly tell you how much lactose there is left in your body after having something such as an intake of milk. Being lactose intolerant can cause lots of discomforts such as abdominal pain, nausea, bloating, gas, vomiting and… so it is very good to know if you are lactose intolerant or not so you can choose what your body intakes are wisely.

The Cohort study divided the people who they wanted to test into two different age groups, one with people under the age of 50 and the other group were people that are over the age of 50 and these studies showed us that the rate of people under 50 that are lactose intolerant are around 29.7% and the rate for people over the age of 50 was 42.9%. from these results we can clearly see that lactose intolerant people over 50 is almost twice as much of the people that were tested and were under 50 years of age. I found some really interesting facts in this article such as roughly 34.6% of individuals living are actually lactose intolerant and that is a significant and eye catching number. Generally Lactose intolerance happens when there is not enough enzyme (lactase) in your small intestine to digest milk sugar which is also known as lactose.

Lactase usually turns milk sugar into two simple sugar such as glucose that is absorbed through the intestinal lining into the bloodstream.

If you are deficient in lactase, instead of being processed and consumed, lactose in your diet passes into the colon. Dairy is an important food for us because they contain calcium and vitamin D but how should lactose intolerant people get these important food factors? Well they can actually use other foods such as fish, green vegetables and soy to get the calcium and vitamin D their body needs to function and be healthy. Studies have shown that the rate of people being lactose intolerant differs with locations. People from Africa and Asia are actually in higher risk of being lactose intolerant than lets say people that live in northern Europe. There are lots of children that are born with this disorder and is very important for the parents to know about this and to place their child on a good and healthy diet based on the way their bodies are.

One thing that caught my attention was that almost all of the studies on being lactose intolerant or not were tested by only milk and not other dairy products and I wonder if the statistics would change if there was a change in the food substance and by trying other dairy products or foods which contain lactose. There should be a difference because the amount of lactose in each substance is different to the other one. This was a very good article in my opinion because I learnt lots of thing from it that I have not even heard of before and knowing that there are many individuals out there struggling from this disorder and this article made me want to go and do more research on common disorders that people have and to get to know them better.