Lactose intolerance historical perspective
|
Lactose Intolerance Microchapters |
|
Diagnosis |
|---|
|
Treatment |
|
Case Studies |
|
Lactose intolerance historical perspective On the Web |
|
American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Lactose intolerance historical perspective |
|
Risk calculators and risk factors for Lactose intolerance historical perspective |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Historical Perspective
The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.) first noted gastrointestinal upset and skin problems in some who consumed milk;[1] patients experiencing the former symptom may likely have been suffering from lactose intolerance. However, it was only in the last few decades that the syndrome was more widely described by modern medical science.
The condition was first recognized in the 1950s and 1960s when various organizations like the United Nations began to engage in systematic famine-relief efforts in countries outside Europe for the first time. Holzel et al (1959) and Durand (1959) produced two of the earliest studies of lactose intolerance. As anecdotes of embarrassing dairy-induced discomfort piled up, the First World donor countries could no longer ascribe the reports to spoilage in transit or inappropriate food preparation at the recipient end in the Third World.
Since the first nations to industrialize and develop modern scientific medicine were dominated by people of Western and Northern European descent, adult dairy consumption was long taken for granted. Westerners for some time did not recognize that the majority of the human ethno-genetic groups could not consume dairy products during adulthood. Although there had been regular contact between Europeans and non-Europeans throughout history, the notion that large-scale medical studies should be representative of the ethnic diversity of the human populations (as well as all genders and ages) did not become well-established until after the American Civil Rights Movement.
Since then, the relationship between lactase and lactose has been thoroughly investigated in food science due to the growing market for dairy products among non-Europeans.
Originally it was hypothesised that gut bacteria such as E. coli produced the lactase enzyme needed to cleave lactose into its constituent monosaccharides and thus become metabolisable and digestible by humans. Some form of human-bacteria symbiosis was proposed as a means of producing lactase in the human digestive tract. Genetics and protein analysis techniques by the early 1970s revealed this to be untrue; humans produce their own lactase enzyme natively in intestine cells.
According to Heyman (2006), approximately 70% of the global population cannot tolerate lactose in adulthood. Thus, some argue that the terminology should be reversed — lactose intolerance should be seen as the norm, and the minority groups should be labeled as having lactase persistence. A counter argument to this is that the cultures that don't generally consume unmodified milk products have little need to discuss their intolerance to it, leaving the cultures for which lactose intolerance is a significant dietary issue to define its terminology.