How Dietary Changes Can Prevent Lactose Intolerance?

Lactose IntoleranceAre you having lactose intolerance? Most of you are confused the lactose intolerance with milk allergy, because the symptoms of milk allergy and lactose are often the same.

It is a genetic disorder and happens most often in people of African, Asian, and Mediterranean descent.

These two are completely different conditions. It has been found that 30-50 million Americans are lactose intolerant.

Certain populations are most widely affected with lactose intolerance than others.

For example, about 90 percent of Asian-Americans are lactose intolerant and about 75 percent of African-Americans are also lactose intolerant.

Most of us really don’t know what lactose intolerance is. It is the inability to digest some major amount of fats that are found in the milk. Most of us have an enzyme called lactase that lines the small intestine. People those are lactose intolerant have a shortage of this enzyme.

The shortage of lactase makes difficult for your body to break down the sugar that is found in milk and dairy products. This enzyme breaks down milk sugar into two simpler forms of sugar called glucose and galactose.

Symptoms of lactose intolerance:

Those who have lactose intolerance will experience the following symptoms after eating the dairy products: bloating, cramping, diarrhea, gas, and nausea. The severity of these symptoms may vary depending on each individual’s body.

The symptoms are being about 30 minutes to 2 hours after eating or drinking foods containing lactose. These symptoms can be very embarrassing, frustrating, and even they can interfere with your daily life.

Dietary changes to prevent lactose intolerance:

Each individual who are lactose intolerant will have to make different changes in their diet. These diet changes depend on how intolerant your body really is.

Usually if you have lactose intolerance then you need to eliminate the products that contain lactose from your diet. You can choose a little bit at first to see if your body can handle it. Having milk provides calcium which is very important for your bones.

Just you can make the proportions smaller and less frequent. It is better to eat a yogurt once in a day to get calcium and it is easier to digest. The yogurt has acidophilus which helps in the breaking down of the lactose.

There is also milk that contains this same live bacteria culture. This milk is called as Sweet Acidophilus milk. The Acidophilus breaks down the sugar and it becomes easier for your body to digest it.

Those who have lactose intolerance can eat cheese, because it only contains small amount of lactose and it is easier for your body to digest. If you eat small proportions of products which contain lactose in conjunction with other foods then it is easier to digest.

Eat cereals along with milk. Mixing the two foods will cause less lactose intolerance symptoms.

Another best option for those with lactose intolerance is eating soy products. You can find soy products like soy milk, soy cheese and soy yogurt in health food stores.

These products come from soybeans. They contain the same proteins (Soy Proteins) as regular cow’s milk, but they won’t contain lot of calcium.

Today lots of foods have hidden lactose in them. So, you need to pay more attention to the food ingredients that you eat. You can read the food labels to see what was used in them.