Lactose Intolerance And What It Indicates About Our Digestive Systems

Definitely something to ruminate upon!

We tend to think of our digestive system at a very simple level. We eat food, our stomach acids break it down, our intestines absorb it, and whatever that isn’t absorbed is excreted into the toilet bowl.

Unfortunately, life isn’t that simple. There are many more chemical reactions that are ongoing within the body — to an extent that we may not even be aware of them!

Our digestive systems, for instance, contain a wide variety of enzymes that decompose complex foods into simpler substances. The saliva in our mouth contains amylase enzymes, which decompose starch into simpler sugars such as glucose. Amylase, of course, is not just present in the saliva but is produced by other organs in the digestive system such as the pancreas.

Other enzymes work on decomposing fats (lipase enzymes) and proteins (protease enzymes). We even have lactase enzymes that work specifically on decomposing lactose sugars.

When our bodies aren’t producing enough of these digestive enzymes, we’d end up developing some intolerances.

For example, my mother had a gall bladder operation many years back, and the consequence of going through that operation was that she cannot take in too much dietary fat in one sitting because she experiences fat malabsorption. She does experience indigestion if the meal is too fatty, though supplementation with digestive enzymes can be helpful to alleviate that discomfort.

Lactose intolerance

People who are lactose intolerant tend to face the symptoms of bloatedness and diarrhea because their digestive systems aren’t producing sufficient lactase enzymes to decompose dietary lactose into its constituent glucose and galactose for absorption into the blood.

Now, milk and other assorted dairy products contain a good dose of this lactose sugar, hence we will commonly associate lactose intolerance as experiencing the digestive discomfort after drinking milk. It can be bad enough that some people will abstain from dairy products completely and seek alternative substitutes such as plant-based milks.

One of my friend’s friends had a stag night where they brought him to eat the spiciest chicken wings that one could find in Melbourne, Australia. They brought along a 1 litre bottle of milk to cool off the spice.

The soon-to-be-married guy tries the chicken wings and then bolts for the milk.

He downs the entire bottle to cool off his tongue, and says “oh, by the way… I’m lactose intolerant.”

That s**t did not go down well, pun intended.

The issue is that the lactase enzyme provides the fastest route for lactose decomposition.

When that route cannot be used, the lactose becomes a free-for-all for any other Tom, Dick or Harry microbe in the gut to grab and make use of.

Unfortunately, these different microbes will respond differently to lactose and create different metabolites out of lactose.

Depending on which metabolites are being produced predominantly, there can be quite a fair bit of irritation in the gut, which leads to the digestive system wanting to expel everything quickly.

As lactose is a carbohydrate consisting of carbon and water molecules in its chemical structure, it’s quite easy for a cell to break it down partially and produce carbon dioxide gas — of course, a buildup of carbon dioxide in the intestines would create quite a fair bit of discomfort and provide the symptom of bloatedness.

And that’s lactose intolerance right there.

Unfortunately, if the digestive system isn’t equipped with the means to produce sufficient digestive enzymes, or if we have had to undergo certain surgical operations that will affect our digestive system functions, we’d inevitably face problems when eating certain types of foods.

That’s a sombre reminder that our bodies tend to continue decaying and that we do need to provide support for them to function at their best.

Do feel free to check out What Nutrients Support Digestion And Detox In Our Body? to see how we can feed ourselves to support our digestive system functions!

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