If you have lactose intolerance, your digestive tract is unable to process lactose, which is the sugar in dairy products. While it's understandable that you might want to find a way to treat your lactose intolerance or alleviate your symptoms, anhydrous lactose won't do anything positive -- and in fact, will cause symptoms to worsen.
Lactose Identified
Lactose is a carbohydrate that's closely related to the other common dietary carbohydrates, including table sugar, fruit sugar and starch. When you consume lactose, enzymes in your small intestine break it into its constituent parts, which are the smaller sugars glucose and galactose. You absorb these into your bloodstream, and the cells can then take them up and use them as a source of immediate energy. You can also store them for later energy use.
Cause of Lactose Intolerance
If you're lactose intolerant, it's because you don't produce enough lactase, which is the enzyme that your small intestine uses to break down lactose. Consequently, the lactose passes into your large intestine and native bacteria there break it down. This process generates large quantities of intestinal gas, which leads to the symptoms of lactose intolerance, including painful bloating and cramping.
Anhydrous Lactose Identified
Lactose, like all carbohydrates, associates strongly with water. This simply means that a sample of lactose tends to stick to water from the environment. Dry, powdered lactose is generally hydrated, meaning associated with water, but it's possible to chemically dehydrate the lactose, making it water-free, or anhydrous. Though you may have heard that this crystalline form of lactose can cure your lactose intolerance, unfortunately there's no truth to that. In fact, the lactose will simply react with water in your gut, becoming regular hydrated lactose, and will cause you problems.
Effective Treatments
If you're looking for a way to manage your lactose intolerance -- unfortunately, there's no way to treat it -- you can try one of several approaches. If you don't mind the sweeter flavor of lactose-free milk as compared to regular milk, that's one option. Lactose-free milk has been "predigested" by bacteria and contains no lactose. Alternately, you can consume regular dairy if you take a lactase supplement -- available over-the-counter -- beforehand.
References
- "Biochemistry"; Mary Campbell, Ph.D. and Shawn Farrell, Ph.D.; 2005
- "Biochemistry"; Reginald Garrett, Ph.D. and Charles Grisham, Ph.D.; 2007
