I have spent the day benefiting from the fact that I am 1) stubborn 2) live to eat and 3) cannot learn my lesson...all due to a lovely glass of ice cold milk.
In college, I practically lived off milk. I relished drinking a large glass of it at every meal, without fail, partly because I loved the taste and partly because I am paranoid about osteoporosis. Early into second year of med school, I started experiencing random episodes of "GI distress" (I'll leave you all to interpret that as you wish, okay?) At first, I thought they were due to mild food poisoning or perhaps stress. After all, I was busy and sometimes, I may have pushed my luck with those leftovers one day too far.
I distinctly remember sitting in the basement cafeteria of a local hospital (studying for boards, yes, actually, in a hospital basement) with my study buddy and literally running to bathroom every hour. After the first few trips, my concerned friend asked what the problem was, and after some explanation and sympathy, he suggested that I might be lactose intolerant. But how could this be, I thought? I had never had a problem with lactose intolerance before. (Recall: 3 large glasses of milk a day in college). Yet the proposal was entirely reasonable. Desperate for relief and thinking that I simply could not afford to be disabled by further GI bouts, I made the decision to cut out milk entirely. A few days later, like magic, no more GI issues.
A few weeks later, we had our GI block and learned all about intestines, enzymes, hormones in great, fun detail. Importantly, I learned that most cases of lactose intolerance are acquired. In fact, most of the world is lactose intolerant, such that some scientists have suggested that the thinking about lactose intolerance should be reversed, with "lactose persistence" considered abnormal. Only certain populations of Northern Europe ancestry, where it was advantageous to be able to digest milk and dairy products, does the lactase enzyme persist beyond infancy.
How to determine for certain whether one is lactose intolerant? Most of the time, people eventually figure it out on their own. But for trickier cases, there's something called a hydrogen breath test. Basically, you're fed a certain dose of lactose and then your breath is measured for hydrogen. If you lack sufficient lactase enyzme to break down lactose, the extra lactose enters your large bowel, where it's broken down by bacteria that produce hydrogen gas and all those wonderful symptoms. There's also an easier test that my GI discussion leader proposed: just drink 16 oz of milk and wait for the fun (or not) to happen.
Granted, I'm lucky. I've determined that I suffer from only a mild case of lactose intolerance. I believe that this is why it took me so long to figure out that I am indeed lactose intolerant. After boards, I took my GI leader advice and downed that 16 oz of milk. Several hours later, sure enough, bloating and diarrhea. Fortunately, I still can eat copious amounts of yogurt without problem and sometimes up to a glass of milk or so. Not so fortunately, some days I miss plain milk too much, temptation gets the better of me, and well, I pay for it.
Currently tickled by: 2010 Visa Championships or U.S. National gymnastics championships, an annual competition where the best gymnasts across the country compete and are selected for the U.S. National teams. Most people don't know that I'm a huge gymnastics fan. I got into it in college, after watching my two dormmates, who both competed for the gymnastics team, in a few live meets. Gymnastics is such an amazing sport to watch - the stuff that these athletes can do is incredible! Check it out at www.usa-gymnastics.org.
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