Why Does Milk Make My Stomach Hurt?

 That's a great question and obviously not everybody has gastrointestinal issues associated with milk but those who do it could be a bugaboo. If one has problems digesting milk it could be that they have a food sensitivity towards it. The food sensitivity did not come overnight, we are all genetically designed to digest milk very efficiently in our very early years. The gene expression is a lactase gene which means our body makes a protein, more specifically an enzyme, to break down the sugar associated with milk which is lactose. This protein is made at high levels during early childhood for the child to get the necessary nutrients. Once the child starts eating other foods and does not drink milk as much we stop making the lactase enzyme.

Humans are genetically engineered in my opinion to only drink milk for a certain period in their life (childhood). It is very rare for animals to drink milk all throughout their adulthood, let alone humans which actually drink the milk from another species for the duration of their life. Once milk intake has declined in the person's diet there is no need for the body, which is highly efficient, to make an enzyme for a substrate (lactose) it does not see. However, the lactase enzyme can be made once again in the presence of the milk sugar lactose, the body notices the milk sugar and says"OK let make something to break this down.

I believe the problem is where people decide to go on and off milk in cycles, when the body sees cycles of milk it needs to shut down and start-up the gene expression. As this gene expression goes through cycles as well it gets problematic and does not fire like a well-oiled machine. Imagine a machine such as a car that is only used very sparingly, it could have problems getting started, but once it's running, no problems. When this cycle of stop and starting goes on for a long time the body has problems starting the machine, which causes gastrointestinal issues. Everybody's body also varies on the cycle, some take a long time to start, some shorter, some so short you don't see and symptoms. The reason why most people show symptoms is because they are overly sensitive to the milk and harder for the cycle to get started and sometimes it may never start again where your body will never break down milk correctly. The best way to tell if are overly sensitive to milk is to go the wellness route and get a food sensitivity test to see if your able to breakdown lactose again.

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