Visit your GP if you think you have lactose intolerance. Before visiting your GP, keep a diary of what you eat and drink, and what symptoms you experience. Tell your GP if you notice any patterns, or if there are any foods that you seem particularly sensitive to.
Your GP may suggest that you try removing lactose from your diet for two weeks to see if it helps to relieve your symptoms. This will provide further evidence that you are lactose intolerant.
Further testing
Your GP may suggest further tests to find out how much (if any) lactase your body is producing and what might be causing your lactose intolerance.
Hydrogen breath test
A hydrogen breath test is a simple and useful test.
You will be given a drink of lactose solution after you have fasted overnight. The concentration of hydrogen is measured in the air that you breathe out. It is measured in parts per million (ppm).
If after about an hour your breath contains a large amount of hydrogen (more than 20 ppm above your baseline), it is likely that you are lactose intolerant. The baseline is the amount of hydrogen that is present in your breath before drinking the lactose solution.
Lactose tolerance test
In a lactose tolerance test, you will be given a drink of lactose solution, and then a sample of blood will be taken from your arm using a needle. The blood will be tested to see how much glucose (blood sugar) it contains.
If you are lactose intolerant, your blood sugar levels will either rise slowly, or not at all. This is because your body is unable to break down the lactose into glucose.
Milk tolerance test
In a milk tolerance test, you will be given a glass of milk (about 500ml) and your blood sugar levels will be tested. If your blood sugar levels do not rise after drinking the milk, you may be lactose intolerant.
Small bowel biopsy
As a small bowel biopsy is an invasive surgical procedure, it is rarely used to diagnose lactose intolerance. However, it may be carried out to see if your symptoms are being caused by another condition, such as coeliac disease (a bowel condition that is caused by intolerance to a protein called gluten).
In a small bowel biopsy, a sample of your small intestinal lining is taken using an endoscope (a thin, flexible tube with a light and a tiny cutting tool at the end). This will be carried out under local anaesthetic (a painkilling medication), so it will not hurt.
The sample of intestinal lining will be tested to see how much lactase it contains. If it only contains a small amount of lactase, lactose intolerance is likely. The biopsy will also reveal whether there is another underlying cause for your lactose intolerance.
- Blood
- Blood supplies oxygen to the body and removes carbon dioxide. It is pumped around the body by the heart.
- Intestines
- The intestines are the part of the digestive system between the stomach and the anus that digests and absorbs food and liquid.
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