ecoming available with reduced lactose levels. Some new products have additives such as lactase to make them more tolerable, and capsules of lactase may be eaten with food to help digest lactose (McCarthy 11). Sometimes drugs to fight the symptoms of LI directly, such anti- diarrhea medications are effective. The implications of not being able to utilize the nutrients in dairy products (especially milk) are far-ranging. Nutritionists recommend that a significant portion of our diet come from the dairy group. Dairy products are one of the four major food groups that we should eat from regularly for good health. If people with LI must avoid or reduce their intake from this important food group, serious malnutrition can result if their diet is not carefully supplemented to make up for the lost dairy products. Lactose intolerant women are especially at risk because there appears to be a link between LI and osteoporosis (Finkenstedt et al. 162). It seems that lactose intolerant women not only cannot digest lactose, but also cannot effectively absorb the important calcium content of milk products. People in the U.S. who are lactose intolerant have many diet options to supplement the loss of milk's nutrition. They can purchase specially prepared milk products that have little or no lactose content, they can choose foods from the other three food groups to balance their diet, or they can purchase lactase supplements. In other less-developed countries, however, the populations often do not have the variety of diet options we have in this country. Except northern European countries, the problem of LI is more severe in most of the world than in the U.S., especially the less- developed, third-world countries (Harrison 815). Although the third-world countries tend to not have high native milk production, a significant portion of their foreign food aid is often milk products. In these countries where milk is expected to be one of the food staples to ...
