VegMoms

Friday’s News + Gathering: The National Institutes of Health is pumping out some udderly confusing reasons why lactose intolerance may not be as big of a problem as many people seem to experience. The gas, bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea and more that many people (including one of my daughters) experience from dairy products doesn’t necessarily mean those people should avoid dairy, according to one NIH panel. 

In the lastest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, April 7, 2010), it’s reported that an NIH conference panel is concerned that people who are thought to be lactose intolerant may be needlessly missing out “on important nutrients in milk and other dairy products.” [They’re also missing out on the saturated fat, cholesterol and antibiotics… but that doesn’t seem to make it into this discussion.]

The interesting thing to me is, in that same article, it clearly says: “It is not known whether individuals with lactose intolerance have nutritional deficiencies or any long-term complications” from avoiding dairy. [Translation: There are lots of sources of vitamin D and calcium that don’t include dairy products, so if people are getting them from those other sources, they’re just fine to avoid the gas and bloat that makes them miserable.]

And the head physician at the NIH conference is quoted saying: “The majority of the world’s population, after weaning and progressively through childhood, have a gradual loss of lactase activity.” This doesn’t mean all those people are lactose intolerant, per se, but it’s definitely a sign that adult humans are not naturally meant to consume milk or milk products after baby and toddlerhood, when human milk is the ideal source. [Check out Dr. Neal Barnard’s discussion of dairy and Type I diabetes on this week’s PCRM Food For Life TV.]

Dairy products are a large part of many people’s diets. And, let’s face it, many of them like cheeses and ice cream taste really good and there’s not a great vegan substitute for all of them … yet. For many of them, the vegan versions are even better these days. I would like to see a more well-rounded discussion of the necessity of dairy products in the human diet by the NIH. Would you? Contact the NIH’s Consensus Development Conference and tell them so.