What causes my body can not digest milk

[Pawelk198604]

I really like milk, even though I know I should not drink it. As drink it diarrhea is almost certain . I have quite a severe allergy to pollen. I know it is in some way related.

[Paprika]

It's presumably Lactose intolerance. This is the inability to break down the sugar lactose, which makes it sit in your intestines where it is fermented by bacteria that can break it down, which presumably is the cause of your diarrhoea. Do you get the same effect with cheese?

Pollen allergies are different to lactose intolerance, as allergic reactions are a type of immune hypersensitivity disorder whereas lactose intolerance is a digestion problem.

Having said that I think dairy allergies are also a thing, so I may be talking total rubbish about lactose intolerance there! If it's a milk allergy, then something in the milk, possibly casein or some other protein, is causing an allergic response in the same way as pollen.

[Scotius]

Looks like you might be a part of unlucky minority (~20%) of Europeans that is genetically uncapable of digesting milk after reaching adulthood. The remaining 80% carries mutated gene that makes them lactose tolerant. If it's any consolation, for example Chinese and Japanese people are overwhelmingly lactose intolerant, so you do not suffer alone

[Pawelk198604]

It's presumably Lactose intolerance. This is the inability to break down the sugar lactose, which makes it sit in your intestines where it is fermented by bacteria that can break it down, which presumably is the cause of your diarrhoea. Do you get the same effect with cheese?

Pollen allergies are different to lactose intolerance, as allergic reactions are a type of immune hypersensitivity disorder whereas lactose intolerance is a digestion problem.

Having said that I think dairy allergies are also a thing, so I may be talking total rubbish about lactose intolerance there! If it's a milk allergy, then something in the milk, possibly casein or some other protein, is causing an allergic response in the same way as pollen.

No, I can eat cheese, yogurt, sour milk. I just can not drink the sweet milk.

I have Asperger's, I'm allergic to a lot of things as for food allergies I just can not drink milk. I once heard that allergy and Asperger syndrome usually are connected.

Edited July 20, 2013 by Pawelk198604

[magnemoe]

Looks like you might be a part of unlucky minority (~20%) of Europeans that is genetically uncapable of digesting milk after reaching adulthood. The remaining 80% carries mutated gene that makes them lactose tolerant. If it's any consolation, for example Chinese and Japanese people are overwhelmingly lactose intolerant, so you do not suffer alone

Yes comes from having cows for some thousands years. An kid able to drink cow milk had an higher chance of survival.

Guess most native Americans and lots of other groups who never had cows are mostly lactose intolerant.

[dharak1]

Yes comes from having cows for some thousands years. An kid able to drink cow milk had an higher chance of survival.

Guess most native Americans and lots of other groups who never had cows are mostly lactose intolerant.

My grandmother is Metis and she is lactose intolerant but I'm only 1/16 native american and the rest is north western European and I don't have lactose intolerance. I was never aware that lactose intolerance was so common. My grandmother is the only person I know with it.

[Kimberly]

I have Asperger's, I'm allergic to a lot of things as for food allergies I just can not drink milk. I once heard that allergy and Asperger syndrome usually are connected.

I'm autistic myself, but I don't have any allergy issues. I don't know if there really is a connection, people like to attach everything to Asperger's.

As for why you have an issue with milk but not other dairy products, many dairy processing methods involve converting some (or most) of the lactose into e.g. lactic acid. If you're not particularly sensitive, then milk can evoke a response while low-lactose dairy products don't.

There is (or was) no real selection pressure for lactose tolerance in many cultures, because the ability to digest lactose is not terribly useful once you're no longer breastfeeding. Unless, of course, you have animals providing you with high-fat, high-calorie milk, in which case it becomes a useful trait.

[Nuke]

humans used to all be lactose intolerant, we had to evolve that ability. i often use this as ammo to defend the theory of evolution.

[bsalis]

On the topic of milk.

What human first thought it was a good idea to drink milk from a cow anyhow. Who the heck saw a suckling calf and thought, "i'd like some of that".

[M83]

On the topic of milk.

What human first thought it was a good idea to drink milk from a cow anyhow. Who the heck saw a suckling calf and thought, "i'd like some of that".

I've spoken to a friend on this, and it might lie in the fact that humans would see human mothers providing breast milk to their children, and when they see the cow doing the same to it's calf, we assumed that we could also drink that. Same applies for things like goat's milk. Just a product of a more primitive human mind working towards survival, though it's more of a logical theory than a fact. I would like to know any exact reason for such.

[Brotoro]

If hungry enough, people will try eating most anything.

Besides (they may have thought)...babies love milk...how could it not be good for adults, too?

[Scotius]

Or maybe some mothers that lost milk fed their babies with animal milk to save their lives? It worked more often than not, so procedure had spread. Really, there is so many possible scenarios we'll probably never know why and how that happened - but obviously ability to digest milk was so beneficial, it swept wide and far in human population.

[jfx]

You can also buy the enzyme you are lacking (Lactase) in pill form. Perfect when you want to eat ice cream etc.

It is also not that expensive.

[Dunbaratu]

I suspect that many strange things we know how to eat are the result of some people in history being desperate enough to try anything rather than starve, and then in so doing discovering by accident that there's something handy about the thing they never would have tried if they weren't desperate. I suspect alcohol is the same way. A portion of the sugar in fruit will naturally become alcohol as the fruit rots. So I figure someone desperate to eat eats rotted fruit and says, "okay this tastes horrible and it's hard to get down but there's something else going on here that's rather pleasant...." After enough anecdotes of doing this, people figure out there's something to this and start trying to work out how to get that interesting rotting-fruit-lightheaded-feeling to happen artificially without all the disgusting rotting going on, and they eventually figure out fermentation.

Figuring out that you can drink cow milk probably started in a similar way. It's a drought. You're desperate for a drink. You see the cow's udder and think, "Well, its that or go thirsty... I'll give it a go..." Do it enough times and the ability to continue tolerating milk at an older age (unlike most mammals that lose the ability to digest milk after they're old enough to stop breastfeeding) starts becoming a survival trait and evolution selects for it.

[Kimberly]

I think that, if you're actually living close to nature, constantly making use of animals and plants for survival, it really isn't a big intellectual leap to drink cow's milk. Humans breastfeed their kids, cows udderfeed their calves...what could possibly go wrong?

[gmpd2000]

No, I can eat cheese, yogurt, sour milk. I just can not drink the sweet milk.

I have Asperger's, I'm allergic to a lot of things as for food allergies I just can not drink milk. I once heard that allergy and Asperger syndrome usually are connected.

I have Asperger, and im not allergic, to nothing.

you just are unlucky to be allergic.

[Paprika]

I've thought about the milk thing before, and similar things; like, who saw a chicken lay an egg and said 'Damn, pass the frying pan'?

And how many people died before we found out which mushrooms are edible and which are toxic?

[Nuke]

if not for milk or eggs or whatever the only reason to keep livestock is for meat. but this is not sustainable, so you need to breed them so that you have a continuing source of meat. you are now controlling the mating habbits of animals. in the case of chickens you remove the rooster but you still get eggs, and eating eggs is something seen in nature. farmers always having to keep the weasels at bay. its not a long shot before someone puts one in the fire and sees what happens, and an enduring breakfast staple is created. the use of milk was probibly a winter survival scenario. you might be down to your last cow, and if you slaughter it you weill have some meat for awhile, but when that runs out you are sol. but the cow can stay alive on its own and it is lactating. being a little bit sick is better than starving to death, so milk is consumed. but this is all just speculation.

[Cesrate]

Looks like you might be a part of unlucky minority (~20%) of Europeans that is genetically uncapable of digesting milk after reaching adulthood. The remaining 80% carries mutated gene that makes them lactose tolerant. If it's any consolation, for example Chinese and Japanese people are overwhelmingly lactose intolerant, so you do not suffer alone

Not very overwhelmingly; I can drink milk, in fact.

[Monkeh]

Not only are we the only creature on this planet that continues to ingest milk outside of childhood, we insist on ingesting the mammary secretion of another bloody animal!

That's just down right weird when you actually think about it.

I suggest ONLY ingesting human milk from now on. Good luck finding a regular source though.