Lactose tolerance / intolerance

By: Sahan Kanthadi & Tomohiro Fukai

4/20/11A4

Name and Location of Gene

The gene for lactase is located in the second chromosome and another nearby gene called MCM6 is responsible for maintaining the ability to produce lactase.

MCM6 activity decreases over time, which causes a decrease in lactase.MCM6

Symptoms When eating or drinking milk products symptoms

will be in affect 30 min to a 2 hours. Drinking or eating large quantity of milk products

can cause worse symptoms. Symptoms include:

• Abdominal bloating• Abdominal cramps• Diarrhea• Gas (flatulence)• Nausea

Children may grow slowly or weight loss.

Treatment and Cure Treatment: There are several tests to check if you have the

disease, including the hydrogen breath test, the stool acidity test, and the lactose tolerance test.

It is not too difficult to avoid the symptoms of lactose intolerance, but because many sources of calcium are taken out of your diet, people must eat calcium rich foods that do not contain lactose. These include broccoli, kale, canned salmon with bones, calcium-fortified foods and tofu. Another way to get the necessary calcium is to take calcium pills.

Cure: There is currently no real cure to get the body to make lactase, but people can treat it by limiting their intake of lactose foods and drinks

Inheritance Lactose intolerance is the result of being

homozygous for the recessive lactase allele that is poorly expressed after early childhood. Being homozygous or heterozygous for the persistence allele allows lactase expression after the time when lactase expression is normally down-regulated. In some circumstances, heterozygote's can manifest partial intolerance, indicating that this is an incompletely dominant gene

Impact on Life It does not have a major impact in

living a normal life, as all it takes to avoid it is to avoid lactose foods and drinks. This shouldn’t affect your family life, your social life, or your career in any significant way, because it is usually not a dangerous disease.

Research Outlook It is now possible to test for lactose

intolerance in a DNA test. It is still quite expensive, but it will help people study lactose deficiency, and most likely help us find a cure.

Scientists were able to make a rat that was lactose intolerant tolerant to lactose by transferring the gene for lactase to their intestinal lining cell, so although unlikely, there may be a way to apply this to humans.

Interesting Facts It is possible for lactose intolerance

to get better during pregnancy. It is often confused with milk allergies.

Have this disease is not rare and it affects 65% of humans.

Work CitedHilton, Lisette. "Lactose intolerance." Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. Thomson Gale, 2006. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.

"Lactose Intolerance Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment on MedicineNet.com." Lactose Intolerance. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.medicinenet.com/lactose_intolerance/article.htm>.

"Lactose Intolerance & Genetics | LIVESTRONG.COM." LIVESTRONG.COM - Lose Weight & Get Fit with Diet, Nutrition & Fitness Tools. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.livestrong.com/article/363736-lactose-intolerance-genetics/>.

"Lactose Intolerance - PubMed Health." Lactose Intolerance. 7 July 2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001321/>.Images:http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/dynamicImages/chromomap/MCM6.jpeg&imgrefurl=http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/gene/MCM6&usg=__jUldUdpTwwm8JkGERvnhYDfXUfU=&h=167&w=621&sz=19&hl=en&start=0&sig2=mVuKLlvG14lWiy8XTB_Buw&zoom=1&tbnid=hrOGuHPZAIhyWM:&tbnh=47&tbnw=174&ei=kxGuTcb6AcOP0QHt1K2tCw&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMCM6%2Bgene%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rlz%3D1C1SKPL_enUS413US413%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D705%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=405&oei=kxGuTcb6AcOP0QHt1K2tCw&page=1&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=78&ty=38

More info…..You can read more about this disease at these websites…..

http://www.livestrong.com/article/363736-lactose-intolerance-genetics/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001321/

http://www.medicinenet.com/lactose_intolerance/article.htm