Why does lactose intolerance not affect drinking yogurt?

Calcium is an important nutrient that is indispensable to the human body, and the easiest way to supplement calcium is to drink milk. Unfortunately, not everyone can supplement calcium by drinking milk because of lactose intolerance.

There are quite a few people in my country who are lactose intolerant. It can even be said that most people have this problem, but lactose intolerance is by no means exclusive to Chinese people. According to a statistical data, the incidence of lactose intolerance in Europe is between 19% and 37%, the incidence of lactose intolerance in Africa is between 45% and 88%, and the incidence of lactose intolerance in Asia is around 54% to 74%. Obviously, as Asians, we are more likely to suffer from lactose intolerance than Europeans and Americans.

According to another survey data, about 310 million people in China have lactose intolerance, and another 350 million are suspected of being lactose intolerant. It seems that lactose is indeed not very friendly to Chinese people.

What is lactose? Lactose is a sugar substance widely found in breast milk. For example, the lactose content of milk is about 5%. This is really strange and interesting. As a mammal, how can humans be intolerant to lactose in breast milk? Normally, after milk enters the human body, it will be broken down into glucose and galactose by lactase in the small intestine, and then absorbed by the body.

People who have symptoms of lactose intolerance actually lack lactase in their small intestine.

Without lactase, lactose cannot be broken down or absorbed by the body. Instead, it remains in the intestines and becomes a delicious meal for intestinal bacteria. The metabolism of intestinal bacteria produces a large amount of fatty acids, methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. The more these gases accumulate, the more they stimulate the intestinal nerves under the effect of intestinal expansion, which leads to abdominal cramps and diarrhea. The activity of lactase in the small intestine of the human body is closely related to age. The older you are, the faster the activity of lactase decreases, and the higher the probability of lactose intolerance.

What should I do if I am lactose intolerant? Isn't it okay to just stop drinking milk? That's not the answer.

We said at the beginning that milk is the easiest way to supplement calcium. According to the dietary habits of ordinary Chinese people, it is difficult to meet the daily calcium intake requirements without drinking milk. Insufficient calcium intake will lead to a series of problems. For example, osteoporosis, leg cramps and insomnia in the elderly are all related to calcium deficiency, while calcium deficiency in teenagers will affect physical development. For ordinary people, calcium deficiency will also increase the probability of cardiovascular disease. So what should we do? You can't drink ordinary milk, but you can drink other dairy products.

You may have discovered that people with lactose intolerance will have diarrhea after drinking milk, but will be fine after drinking yogurt. Why is that?

The reason is actually very simple. During the fermentation process of yogurt, lactic acid bacteria will break down lactose and turn it into lactic acid. Therefore, there is very little lactose remaining in yogurt. If you are not a very lactose intolerant person, you can usually drink yogurt. Similar to yogurt, the lactose content in cheese is also very low, so people with general lactose intolerance can also eat it. What if the lactose intolerance is very serious? Then you can drink lactose-free milk.

How does milk achieve zero lactose?

This is actually not complicated. You only need to add lactase to the milk during the processing. In this way, the lactose in the milk will be directly broken down into glucose and galactose, which can be directly absorbed by the human body after entering the human body, and will not cause lactose intolerance. Some people don’t like to drink zero-lactose milk, thinking it is too sweet, as if sugar has been added, but it is not. The sweetness of lactose is only 16, while the sweetness of glucose reaches 74.3, so after the lactose is converted into glucose, the milk will naturally feel sweeter, and it is not caused by the addition of sugar later.