ELEMENTAL | Can You Make a Lactose Intolerance Disappear?
Roughly three-quarters of the world’s adult population has trouble digesting lactose, which is a type of sugar found in milk and other dairy products. Doctors routinely label people who experience these symptoms as “lactose intolerant” and counsel them to avoid dairy products.
“If lactose maldigesters continue to consume lactose regularly, many can become tolerant,” agrees Andrew Szilagyi, a gastroenterologist and lactose intolerance researcher at Canada’s McGill University.
Szilagyi is quick to add that not all the bad reactions people attribute to dairy are caused by lactose. A small number of people experience lactose-intolerance-like symptoms from the fat in ice cream or from certain milk proteins, and eating more dairy probably won’t help them. But he says the average lactose maldigesters can handle at least 12 grams of lactose, which is roughly the amount in a cup of milk.
