Intestinal problems ?not necessarily caused by dairy products?
20 Dec 2005
Milk and other lactose-rich products may be unjustly blamed in cases of food-related gastrointestinal symptoms, say scientists in Finland. They believe the cause may in fact be a so far-uncharacterised intestinal immune-mediated disorder. Dr Laura Paajanen and colleagues at the [Finnish] Foundation for Nutrition Research reports in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that in a blind trial on 23 people with food-related gastrointestinal symptoms, milk caused significant symptoms in only two. Of 47 subjects put through a lactose intolerance test, 16 tested positive, but of those only four proved to have the C/C genotype of the LCT gene, which is a marker of low genetic lactase activity. The researchers conclude that food-related gastrointestinal symptoms in young adults are caused by unspecific and unknown traits of altered mucosal immune response rather than by cow?s milk.