I am slightly lactose intolerant. I only say “slightly” because *think* I have a higher tolerance to dairy than other people but ofc still have limits.
A little TMI below so please be warned ^^;
Like for today for instance. I ate a Philly cheesesteak (it was so good), it didn’t give me diarrhea, but it did soften my stool and made me go about 15~25 minutes after eating it. But there are other times where I have dairy and it will just give me mild constipation.
In: Biology
Lactose is a sugar which can not be absorbed by your body. In babies and people with a specific mutation the lactose gets broken down so it can be absorbed. But for most adults the lactose does not get broken down and instead pass to the gut where there is bacteria that can digest it. It is basically the school science experience of mixing yeast, luke warm water and sugar to create a yeast explosion, except in your lower intestines. However different types of microbes will react differently to the lactose. Some can digest it better then others. So depending on your gut bacteria you may get different reactions to the lactose. In general the more lactose you consume the more of the bacteria that can easily digest lactose you get and the worse your reaction to lactose will be.
The gene mutation appeared in Northern Europe, so more people with European ancestors tolerate dairy then with other ancestors.
How you prepare the dairy also matters. Hard / aged cheese contains no lactose. Fresh cheese contains only a little. Butter also have little lactose. This is because most of the whey are removed.
Yogurt and fermented milk like buttermilk has less lactose than fresh milk. The bacteria that causes the fermentation feeds off the lactose/milk sugar.
Food made from whey have a lot of lactose. Protein powder might contain a lot of whey, also some candies.
Diet plays a role in some people’s reaction. For instance, when I was Keto for a year the wild side effect was that I could consume as much dairy as I wanted, and I have found other lactose intolerant people on Keto who experienced the same effect.
Your example doesn’t show you’re lactose intolerant.
Cheese and other fermented milk products don’t contain much lactose, bacteria already broke it down during fermentation. There’s not much cheese on the cheese steak either and it wouldn’t get to your intestines in 25 minutes.
If you were lactose intolerant you’d get gas/diarrhea couple hours after drinking milk or eating dairy, not constipation.
A lot of people use “lactose intolerant” to mean “milk intolerant” – technically they are two different things.
I was born allergic to cows milk, and almost died as a baby because of it. As I aged my tolerance grew till now I can consume most milk products in a produced form (ie cheese not pure milk) in small form.
Though it is worth pointing out the huge connection between milk intolerance and Type 1 Diabetes onset. There is something going on with the auto-immune system in both cases.. and it is somehow related in an as yet not well understood way.
Lactose intolerance is generally the absence of lactase enzymes in your digestive flora.
This causes the body to fail to break down and absorb the lactose, and so try to flush it out as fast as possible. It’s presence also interferes with the intestines ability to absorb water and other fluids – so you end up with gas, and rapid onset diarrhoea – all that excess water that isn’t being absorbed in the intestines has to get out of your body, and there’s nothing to really stop liquids in the intestines, hence the rapid onset.
In people with lactase producing enzymes, the lactose is broken down into other, normal, absorbable sugars, so the digestion functions normally.
Interestingly, you can take Lactase tablets with dairy (if your issue is actual lactose intolerance) and eat like a normal person while the added enzymes are present in your guts.
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