7 Symptoms of Lactose Intolerance You Shouldn’t Ignore

You regularly experience bloating and gas

You know pretty quickly when the frozen yogurt you ate an hour ago isn’t digesting correctly; you’ll feel it in your puffed-out abdomen. Joel B. Mason, MD, a professor of medicine and nutrition at Tufts University, says all of these symptoms can be the result of a deficiency of the enzyme lactase, which typically breaks down the two types of sugar in each lactose molecule so they can be easily absorbed into the intestine. In other words, these are symptoms of lactose intolerance. Without lactase, lactose molecules will travel down the intestinal track whole and bacteria will try to break them down through a process of fermentation, which produces a whole lot of extra gas in your abdomen. Here are some other reasons your belly might be bloated.

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