YorkTest > Allergy or Intolerance? > Milk Intolerance

Within many cultures of the world, especially the Western world, humans continue to consume milk beyond infancy, using the milk of other animals (in particular, cattle) as a food product. For many hundreds of years cow’s milk has been processed into dairy products such as cream, butter, yogurt, kefir and cheese. Industrial processing has brought us casein, whey protein, condensed milk, powdered milk, and many other milk based food ingredients.

 

Humans are an exception in the natural world for consuming milk past infancy, despite the fact that a high percentage of adult humans are lactose intolerant. The prevalence of lactose intolerance is above 50% in South America, Africa, and Asia, reaching almost 100% in some Asian countries. In the United States, the prevalence is 15% among whites, 53% among Mexican-Americans and 80% in the Black population. In Europe it varies from around 2% in Scandinavia to about 70% in Sicily. The sugar lactose is found only in milk, forsythia flowers, and a few tropical shrubs. The enzyme needed to digest lactose, lactase, reaches its highest levels in the small intestines after birth and then begins a slow decline. On the other hand, those groups that do continue to tolerate milk have been able to benefit from using the milk of domesticated ungulates, not only of cattle, but also sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo and camels.