Dairy Discomfort
You get the munchies and decide to grab for a cheeseburger and a giant milk shake. An hour later you get stomach crams and feel bloated enough to inflate a raft. You may just be lactose intolerant. This is a condition that affects three out of four people in different levels of intolerance and my man is one of those people.
To start off, lactose intolerance is totally different from a milk allergy. An allergy to dairy or dairy products is caused by a protein that your system could be allergic to as opposed to being lactose intolerance where the system doesn’t have the enzyme lactase that is used to digest the milk into forms much more suited for bloodstream absorption.
What happens next is that the unbroken down milk travels all the way to the large intestines and gets fermented. That’s where the actual discomfort comes from. Some lactose intolerant people may be able to take in small amount of dairy while some couldn’t take it in at all without experiencing discomfort.
The symptoms which include bloating, gas, nausea and extremely bad breath occur from 30 minutes to a couple of hours from the time that the lactose is taken.
Although this is not an alarming condition, it does put a hold back on the good life and keeps you crawled up in a ball with all the discomfort it comes with.
Lactose isn’t just found in milk and cheese. There are traces found in baked goods, margarine, cereals, salad dressings and other products, so make sure to check the label. There are even drugs that contain lactose that could cause the same effect.
Since milk is the product where we get the majority of our calcium intake, then being lactose intolerant would make a calcium intake a dilemma. Taking calcium tablets or calcium-fortified products may help in maintaining the constant level.
There is no permanent treatment of cure that you can do to get rid of it. All you can do is avoid the products with milk and hidden lactose altogether or you can use lactose pills or drops. You take it before meals and it will give you enough lactase so you can enjoy a lactose-enriched meal without having to worry about the symptoms later on. Maybe your level of intolerance may allow even one glass of milk a day. If it’s like that then you can still enjoy milk products. But even of a sip of milk upsets you already then the pills and drops can help you.
Being lactose intolerant shouldn’t keep you from a healthy life or prevent you from enjoying your favorite foods.
If you want to enjoy the benefits of milk without the side-effects of lactose, you might want to try this following alternatives.
SOY MILK – enjoy the pleasure of drinking milk. It is made from soy flour or soy beans.
YOGURT – it is researched that the bacteria found in the yogurt actually fights against the negative effects lactose have on people.
CALCIUM-FORTIFIED ORANGE JUICE – not just orange juice but anything really fortified to help calcium intake that is hindered by lactose intolerance.