Symptoms:
Diarrhea, gas, and abdominal cramps. Symptoms generally begin 30 minutes to 2 hours after eating dairy products.

In infants, symptoms include foamy diarrhea with diaper rash, slow weight gain and development, as well as vomiting.

Cause:
Lactose intolerance is inability to digest milk sugar. The intestinal wall is not able to make the digestive enzyme, lactase, which is needed to split lactose into glucose and galactose. When the lactose is not split, it remains undigested in the intestinal tract; retains fluid; and ferments in the colon, producing gas, diarrhea, and abdominal cramping.

Although it can cause digestive disruption and discomfort, lactose intolerance will not produce dangerous results, and can be easily controlled through careful diet.

Oddly enough, hardly any adults in the world can digest milk sugar after the age of 20. The exceptions are most Caucasians of northern European origin.

The following infections can result in lactose intolerance: irritable bowel syndrome, regional enteritis, and ulcerative colitis.

Although less common, in infants and children it can occur after a severe attack of gastroenteritis, which injures the intestinal wall.

If you are pregnant and there is lactose intolerance in your family, plan to breast-feed your child or give him a non-dairy formula (such as soy milk). But, if you do, give him added calcium gluconate powder, since soy milk does not contain enough calcium.

Lactose intolerance is different than milk allergy. A person with lactose intolerance cannot digest milk sugar; one with milk allergy can digest milk, but his immune system is antagonistic to one or more of its components.

Treatment:
• Avoid all milk and dairy products. This includes ice cream.

• Beware of products which contain small amounts of added milk ingredients, such as "milk solids." Lactose is added to many processed foods, including cookies, pancake mixes, breads, canned and powdered soups, flavored coffees, powdered drink mixes, and processed meats.

• Since you cannot drink milk, eat foods which are rich in calcium. This includes broccoli, dried figs, apricots, blackstrap molasses, and other vegetable greens.

• Do not eat spinach or rhubarb, for they contain a chemical which blocks absorption of calcium.

• Take supplemental calcium gluconate (or calcium lactate) powder. This is an excellent source of nutritional calcium.

• Many pharmaceutical drugs contain lactose as a filler.

• Do not eat any solid food during a lactose attack of diarrhea. Just drink lots of good water and replace lost minerals.

• Acidophilus milk would not help the person with lactose intolerance, for the acidophilus works to improve conditions in the colon, and the problems with lactose occur in the small intestine.