A significant fraction of people can’t handle lactose, like [HGModernism]. Rather than accept a cruel, ice cream free existence, she decided to do something you really shouldn’t try: biohacking her way to lactose tolerance.
The hack is very simple, and based on a peer reviewed study from the 1990s: consume lactose constantly, and suffer constantly, until… well, you can tolerate lactose. If you’re lactose intolerant, you’re probably horrified at the implications of the words “suffer constantly” in a way that those milk-digesting-weirdos could never understand. They probably think it is hyperbole; it is not. On the plus side, [HGModernism]’s symptoms began to decline after only one week.
The study dates back to the 1980s, and discusses a curious phenomenon where American powdered milk was cluelessly distributed during an African famine. Initially that did more harm than good, but after a few weeks mainlining the white stuff, the lactose-intolerant Africans stopped bellyaching about their bellyaches.
Humans all start out with a working lactase gene for the sake of breastfeeding, but in most it turns off naturally in childhood. It’s speculated that rather than some epigenetic change turning the gene for lactose tolerance back on — which probably is not possible outside actual genetic engineering — the gut biome of the affected individuals shifted to digest lactose painlessly on behalf of the human hosts. [HGModernism] found this worked but it took two weeks of chugging a slurry of powdered milk and electrolyte, formulated to avoid dehydration due to the obvious source of fluid loss. After the two weeks, lactose tolerance was achieved.
Should you try this? Almost certainly not. [HGModernism] doesn’t recommend it, and neither do we. Still, we respect the heck out any human willing to hack the way out of the limitations of their own genetics. Speaking of, at least one hacker did try genetically engineering themselves to skip the suffering involved in this process. Gene hacking isn’t just for ice-cream sundaes; when applied by real medical professionals, it can save lives.
Thanks to [Kieth Olson] for the tip!
I found a relatively easy path with gut bacteria: consuming milk kefir, which contains several strains of bacteria feeding on lactose. It was an easy path, over few weeks for improvement, and barely two months for full accommodation. Now it’s plainly solved, but I do enjoy kefir anyway. I can do without, and just avoid very high content lactose products.
And well, it’s also proven to work:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12728216/
Just beware: not all kefir is helping. Some varieties are more effective.
I second that. Some local sold varieties of kefir (or yogurt for that matter) seem to be fakes diluted/mixed with something (starch? soy?) that only tastes similarly.
I recall when I was growing up one of the local stores was selling “farm-fresh sour cream” liberally diluted with kefir. I could tell the proportions by the taste, but it was well-known that local kefir was actually cheap and plentiful, and coincidence has it, this was before all the filler chemicals were invented, it was actual kefir kefir, not the diluted/mixed fork of such.
I honestly don’t buy the entire “70% of the world is lactose intolerant”. I mean there are civilisations and cultures which enjoy milk and milk products in their daily lives. That just wouldn’t happen if lactose intolerance was as prevalent
Something is fishy. I just cannot figure out what
Knowledge and education would help your case… Ignorance is the best ferment for conspiracy theories.
I suppose it means the addressable market for milk is 30% of the population. It’s useful to also realize that things like cheese, butter, yoghurt, kefir, etc. have low lactose because the fermenting bacteria have already consumed it.
It seems the more detailed story is that about 70% of the population has ‘lactose malabsorption’, which is not the same thing as ‘intolerance’. And of those with malabsorption, about 1/3 of those experience intolerance. That takes the number down to 23%.
More info regarding the 70%, the 1/3, and the distinction between malabsorption/intolerance:
https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/lactose-intolerance/definition-facts
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261561423003436
The geographic/ethnic distribution described is also interesting.
Butter is not fermented. Just a reminder to stay in the lane of truth. I made butter in kindergarten, as was the fashion at the time. Butter is not fermented. That’s borderline crazytalk.
Now I see the some butter is indeed fermented. Such an idiot. I apologize. Reporting my previous comment.
Congrats & thanks for pointing that out.
I didn’t notice the butter in that list and would’ve agreed with you.
Actually I kind still do.
Kraft singles can’t be called cheese in the USA (because not fermented?).
But fermented butter is “butter” even thou its huuuugly different from regular butter?
Meh!
n.p.
In truth I added butter to the list as a last minute edit once I had verified that it is also considered low/no lactose dairy product, but failed to notice at the time of posting that the subsequent fermentation qualifier might cause confusion since they were intended for the others that I had already enumerated. And there is no ‘edit’ button here. (or ‘delete’ as you have seen.)
Fermented butter is commonly called (in the states, at least) ‘cultured’ or ‘European style’. But even the non-fermented (‘sweet’) butter is considered low lactose by virtue of the majority of the liquid component having been removed by churning. E.g.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/dairy-foods-low-in-lactose
@ limroh; Kraft singles can’t be called cheese simply because that’s what the FDA regulations state: it needs to be 51% or more of cheese to be labelled as cheese.
However, it is real cheese from a practical standpoint. It’s just that the cheese has been blended with things like whey and notably emulsifying salts to created the processed product.
It’s real easy to make yourself at home. Start with some cheese, add some dilutant, such as milk but could even be water, and a bit of trisodium citrate. This is basically what the commercial products are doing, though they have a broader array of additives and tweaks. An advantage of doing it yourself is you get to pick the source cheese to use. Maybe jack instead of cheddar.
You are right about something fishy……
I have two words for you……
Big Pharma….
You want some insight into this……
Read Jonas Salk’s book
“Survival of the Wisest”
Get the truth from the man who brought us the Polio Vax….
“Something is fishy. I just cannot figure out what”
I am pesco-intolerant. Much prefer cheezburgers.
You could watch the video and find out?
Guess not.
Not all humans are born lactose tolerant, neither of my children were and it caused significant anguish until it was (quickly) worked out by the magnificent NHS and their incredible staff.
And I can also confirm, they are both now in their late teens and well able to tolerate lactose
Humans ARE born lactose tolerant, and normally loose this ability once not breastfed anymore, unless keeping eating lactose. It´s just that is does not work always, or well enough for everybody.
My Father was born Lactose Intolerant in 1928 in a California Town. The Only milk he could drink was Goats Milk.. His mother was Dry, and His Father would not Tolerate a Goat anywhere near his house.. They purchased a ‘Drop In Sulfur Dioxide’ Refrigeration Top for the Ice Box they were already using. This was required to keep the Milk Fresh rather than have a Goat.
We finally got rid of that Refrigerated Ice Box some time in ’96 when we got rid of a lot of the Family Estate Stuff. The Box still worked..
Cap
Their next hack, how to install a new toilet. Sorry potty humor.
Just remember “suffering” means you suffer right along with the rest of us. Hope you all brought your gas masks.
This means war!
X-hot kimchi, not fresh hard boiled eggs, cheap beer.
The herbivore thought he had a natural advantage.
He found out.
Truth, we all got the afternoon off.
They were confused when the firemen learned their was no gas service to building.
She does make that point in the video. She lives alone and it was during Covid, so she wasn’t subjecting others to olefactory suffering.
I’ve had lactose intolerance on and my whole life. As a dairy lover I can confirm this has worked for me. I’d say every 2-5 years something knocks out my lactose tolerance and it gets reset back to 0. I then struggle to remember to vary lactase enzyme to be able to comfortably eat dairy. It never works very well for me and I inevitably give up on lactase enzyme and suffer through diarrhea for a few weeks (usually a bit more than two for me), and I’m back to being able to handle dairy for the next few years.
The only exception is sweetened condensed milk. That’s instant cramps as explosive trips to the toilet for me no matter my tolerance for other dairy or intake of lactase, which suggests to me there’s an upper limit to what my body can handle.
Maybe Other bacteria in your gut feed on the sweetener in the condensed milk and flourish as a result.
Unfortunately, I think I have a slightly different problem – I think I’m actually allergic to lactose. It doesn’t cause much in the way of stomach upset, but it will initiate an asthma attack – sometimes within minutes, sometimes after a few hours.
I don’t have that problem with lactose-free dairy products. Weird, huh?
That doesn’t sound so weird to me. I always get a bit of mild asthma and a stuffy nose if I drink whole milk. 2% isn’t as bad, skim is fine. I’m told that as a baby they had to feed me soy milk. Is it the lactose? I have no idea. I never looked into it, I just buy skim and expect to feel slightly worse after eating ice cream. I haven’t noticed any issues from cheese or butter.
I seem to do OK with lactose-free milk, cream, and butter. Regular butter can be a problem, but cheeses – at least the ones I eat – seem to be fine. Milk and cream that aren’t lactose free always cause problems for me sooner or later.
it could be milk protein allergy – totally different thing than lactose intolerance although it’s based on milk too.
If that was the case then I’d expect to have asthma attacks when I consume lactose-free milk and cream. I don’t though – it’s only milk and cream which contain lactose that initiate an asthma attack.
It’s nice to see Hackaday reaching out to the fetish community, and I’m not referring to the article.
Years back I’ve asked one of our relatives (who is not just doctor, but teaching professor and author of textbooks, etc) whether human metabolism (pardon my amateur vocabulary) is gene-driven or not. Her answer was “it is emergent phenomena not is very well understood overall, but, of course, there are distinct phases that are quite well-known and described in popular media”. I asked if one can change his personal metabolism to, say, lose weight, and she replied “yes, certainly, you ARE changing it all the time – even modest physical exercise does that, and you know that.” My next question was “so if there some kind of universal manual for the human body metabolism?” and this is where she paused for some while, looked at me and said “no, and every human is too unique to have one-size-fits-all; while obvious differences are present, gender, height, etc, the rest are too individual to shoe-horn into one large manual that would work for everyone.”
I’ve long thought about that discussion, because I did hear about few successful stories of someone gradually changing his own metabolism in order to avoid complications from diabetes – obviously, supervised by doctors who planned entire course of correction, regular tests, etc – which I also mentioned, but this was way too complicated to my limited mind (and some random bits of knowledge stuck here and there). Krebs Cycle was the last complicated thing that I could mentally digest/tolerate, but it left me mostly asking more questions whether this is even simple to start with. It is not. There is a reason why it takes almost 10 years to educate one doctor (compared with what, 4 years to mint and install one career politician) and even then asking one for his input is never simple, the topic is not simple “do 10 push ups every morning and your belly goes flat in a month”.
Try to understand exactly why an individual human body does what it does… There won’t be one gene regulating but several that interact in complex ways. Those same genes will also affect other processes in different ways.
Then.. if you can manage all that and understand exactly what those genes do and how they interact… (ha ha, good luck)
Now add in the epigenetics.
Ok, so somehow you figured out exactly what that human body is genetically “programmed” to do.
Great start!
Now identify and quantify all of the bacteria in the digestive system and perform this same analysis of each.
I was somewhat lactose intolerant as a child. Fazer milk chocolate would be an immediate trigger for stomach cramps or worse. So I did what any kid would do: ate more chocolate without regard to the consequences. Slowly but surely the symptoms became less severe, to the point that I no longer had them at all.
I always thought it was related to becoming older, but this paper is giving me cause to rethink that.
She completed the Oregon Trail with success!
It was done 7 years ago by DIY gene therapy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3FcbFqSoQY
Obviously there exist various levels of intolerance. I thought for years I was suffering stress diarrhoea, but stopping milk on breakfast cereal fixed this in a fortnight. Fine with bitter, cheese, yoghurt, even cocoa.
Bacteria has already eaten all the lactose in your cheese and yogurt. That’s what makes them cheese and yogurt.
Lactose intolerance is the clinical (ie whata person feels, experiences) situation. It can be the result of lactose malabsorption (but not necessarily), which can be the result of lactase deficiency (but not necessarily), which can have several etologies. Most (this is where 60-70% comes in) of the world’s population reach lactase deficiency around age of 6, but this is very much related to world-regions and ethnicity. Europeans and European-Americans are the least affected, leading to vast populations not being used to this “being a thing”, while others expect it for everyone.
There are genetics and epigenetics involved, as well as other factors beyond these two, which is part of the reason that in some people lactase “can turn on again” after levels have reduced in childhood.
So far is what I’ve studied and learned as a family physician. The next is pure conjecture:
I would not follow the advice here for all. Tolerance can probably be re-acquired for some, depending on their personal mix of factors, some of which I’ve mentioned here, but for many others I believe this will inevitably fail, possibly with some health risks.
I did the same for oranges. I like oranges and orange juice since I was a kid but I used to break out in blisters. The cure: I ate oranges and drunk orange juice until it stopped. I’m free of that allergy now.
Off to the store to get a case of Tequila.
Tannerite is on hand.
A friend in college read this study and DIYd themselves out of their intolerance. They did not just consume and suffer till it went away though. Instead they used a lactose free protein shake mix and powdered milk, gradually decreasing the protein shake and increasing the powdered milk over the course of a month. They went from not being able to drink milk or eat ice cream without terrible stomach pains to being a daily eater of bowls of cereal and regular patron of the local dairy queen,. YMMV
I did a similar DIY on myself many years ago, but systematically & much more gently. I wasn’t always lactose intolerant. But, for a long time I consumed almost no dairy. Then I noticed that after an ice cream cone or glass of milk, I got a bad case of the squirts. So, being an engineer, I experimented. I tried drinking a few drops of milk – no reaction. I increased the amount until I got a mild reaction (threshold). After that, I intentionally drank slightly less than the threshold every day or two, for weeks or months. Over time I slowly increased the amount, almost never having a reaction :-). Eventually, I got back to where I could have a full glass of milk, or a normal ice cream without any reaction. Still, if I go way overboard … but that’s on me – Got to know your limits.
IMO this seems insane.
I’m fairly lactose intolerant, though I can consume butter, hard cheese, a few slices of pizza, and WELL strained yogurt. I do regularly, which might be in line with these findings.
I’m also fairly pain tolerant.
I have done my own stitches several times, including my scalp once and down into a muscle another time(puncture wound in the leg while biking and miles into the forest. The ride out was UNPLEASANT.)
I have also had to slice off a 3-4 sq cm section of charred skin. (Model rocket engine mishap. It’s complicated.)
Despite those experiences, the stretching tearing overinflating pain from a gut full of gas from lactose consumption is worse.
I have never experienced more pain than lying in bed, mewling, gasping, sobbing, clawing at my abdomen as the gas slowly moves through me.
There is no more person. No thoughts. Nothing but the slow march of seconds as the pain builds to it’s terrible crescendo.
The idea of intentionally inflicting even a portion of that is almost unthinkable.
No. I think I’ll just be happy with the Parmesan/Swiss/Cheddar style cheese and butter.
Note: I know several others with intolerance, and we all seem to have an acquired DIS-taste for lactose. Lactose literally tastes and SMELLS awful to us, possibly because of the association with pain.
I have an extremely sensitive nose, and I found myself literally gagging when a friend made a cup of coffee with skim milk because it smelled so rancid and the steaming beverage was wafting it around.