Ever wondered why you need to rush to the toilet after having dairy products like milk (ahem, boba) and cheese? Some of us also experience intense bloating in the stomach and farting into oblivion after indulging in a dose of delicious milk tea.
We’ve found the answer for you. In case you didn’t know, this condition is known as lactose intolerance. And apparently, Asians are more prone to experience lactose intolerance than Europeans. Almost all children (of all races) are built-in with the ability to digest lactose (the sugar found in mammalian milk), this can be done with an existing enzyme called lactase.
Source: Eater
However, lactase enzyme will decrease in numbers when children grow past 5 years old, and the decrease of lactase enzyme has a name too: lactase non-persistence.
According to Next Shark, humans were “supposed” to be lactose intolerant in the early civilisations. But the people in the Western hemisphere had become lactose persistent because of the invention of agriculture thousands of years ago, and people began taking other sources of lactose other than human breastmilk.
Source: First Cry Parenting
Now here comes the answer you’ve been waiting for:
People from countries that don’t get a lot of sunlight (like the northern European countries) need to consume more milk to obtain calcium since they lack Vitamin D from the sun. This explains why non-Asian people can handle dairy products better than Asians who primarily get a lot of sunlight from where they come from.
Source: Next Shark
From this map, you could see that the countries that are closer to the equator have a higher prevalence of lactose intolerance. It relates to why only as low as 5% of northern European adults get lactose intolerance, while over 90% in Asian communities have it.
Dairy products have a special spot in our hearts, and we wouldn’t give it up even if our intestines rumble after drinking a cup of milk tea. Don’t worry about completely omitting dairy products from our lives! Because we can have small amounts of dairy at a time, especially cheese and yoghurt as they contain less lactose than milk. Other than that, lactase enzymes are available over-the-counter at pharmacies, you can definitely take them with any dairy product to avoid diarrhoea and farts!
Also read: Attention Cheese Lovers: Study Shows That Eating Cheese May Help You Live Longer!
