Association between milk consumption and lactose malabsorption in Indonesian children

OBJECTIVE: To study the association between milk consumption and lactose malabsorption in Indonesian children aged 3-12 years. METHODS: This cross sectional study was conducted in randomly selected presumed healthy children with good nutritional status aged 3-12 years in Central Jakarta, Indonesia (n=174), including 72 children aged 3-5 years and 102 children aged 6-12 years. RESULTS: The prevalence of lactose malabsorption in children aged 3-5 years and children aged 6-12 years was 20.8% (15/72) and 35.3% (36/102), respectively. There was no association between milk or milk product consumption and lactose malabsorption (P>0.05). In the 51 children with lactose malabsorption, the predominant clinical symptoms were diarrhea (62%), abdominal pain (52%), and nausea (5%) during the hydrogen breath test. CONCLUSIONS: There is no association between milk consumption and lactose malabsorption in Indonesian children aged 3-12 years, suggesting that genetic predisposition may be more important than adaptive mechanisms to lactose consumption.