For the first time, scientists have shown that dairy intolerance is a physiological condition distinct from lactose intolerance, and not “all in people’s heads”.
“Lots of people suspect that they have some intolerance to dairy foods, but testing shows they aren’t lactose intolerant,” says Dr Amber Milan, a research fellow at the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland. “Before this study, there had not been any detailed analysis of dairy intolerance to see if something else could be causing it.
“Our findings show dairy intolerance is a ‘real thing’ with a particular symptom profile - not something that’s just in people’s heads. That means sufferers and doctors can better identify it. Now, we need to find out more about what’s going on and how to measure it better.”
Her team, which includes researchers from AgResearch, gave 30 healthy young women who reported being dairy intolerant, and a control group of 10 dairy-consuming women, two “challenges”: drinking 50g of lactose – an equivalent amount of the poorly digested sugar naturally occurring in about a litre of milk – to determine if they had lactose intolerance or not. On a separate visit, the same women downed 750ml of standard dairy milk. The women were aged 20-30, and had BMI within the normal range.