Question:
What's the difference between lactose intolerance and milk allergy?Answer:
ParentingTeensOnline Editor, Judith Sachs, answers:
A milk or dairy allergy is a reaction to the protein in milk. There are two milk proteins, casein and whey. Some people are allergic only to one or the other. Most are allergic to both. The safest course in either case is to avoid all dairy products. This is very different from Lactose Intolerance (LI). People who have LI cannot digest the milk sugar, lactose, because they manufacture too small a quantity of the digestive enzyme, lactase, but they can still have small or moderate amounts of milk.