6 ms·

65%-90% of humans are lactose intolerant[0], and lactaid pills aren't always effective. https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lactose-intolerance#statistics https:

• toasterlovin 10y ago
  I'm guessing that ratio is probably different for people on HN, since, as fluent English speakers, they're more likely to be descended from Europeans.
  • vidarh 10y ago
    It is, but it's still significant. 13% for whites in the US but rising to near 90% for some ethnic groups. Europe varies greatly, with by far the highest level of tolerance in Northern Europe (I'm Norwegian, and I didn't even know about lactose intolerance until I was in the 20's - it just wasn't something that became a subject until we were exposed to more immigrants as while it existed in Norway before that it was <5%), with lactose intolerance increasing to well above 20% in many other European countris. In any case the advice to down vast quantities as milk isn't universally applicable anywhere.
  • TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    I would be very surprised if HN didn't also a large number of people of Asian descent who are much less likely to tolerate lactose.
• Frondo 10y ago
  That is not a careful reading of the statistics given. The full quote: "Approximately 65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy. Lactose intolerance in adulthood is most prevalent in people of East Asian descent, affecting more than 90 percent of adults in some of these communities. Lactose intolerance is also very common in people of West African, Arab, Jewish, Greek, and Italian descent."
• dragonwriter 10y ago
  Lactose free milk (ehich is different than taking lactase pigs with milk) is a readily available thing.