Can you develope lactose intolerance all of a sudden?

Can you develop lactose intolerance later in life?

• I know that it's the lack of the lactase enzyme and it's something you're born with, but can you also develope it at a later date? Is there any medication or diseases whos side effect is lactose intolerance?

• Answer:

  Yeap, I developed it after my daughter was born, it has progressively gotten worst. First just milk bothered me, then cheese, now yogurt . . . it sucks! As far as diseases or medications which cause it, I am not aware of any, but I would suppose that anything which would kill the bacteria in your gut could have some type of affect. Lactose intolerance, as you stated, is simply a lack of an enzyme that the bateria in your gut make to break-down lactose. I read (although I can not reference it at this moment) that if you stop ingesting dairy products, the bacteria stop making the enzyme, I am not sure if this is 100% correct, but perhaps it's a type of "evolutionary process" our individual bodies go through in adapting to our environment . . . that's my hypothesis :-) Also, various ethnic groups, particulary hispanic's are lactose intolerant. I find it helpful to take those lactose pills, I have to take two if I want to drink a glass of milk, but every once in a while I just get a craving to go crazy on the dairy.