Acute abdominal pain is one of the commonest presentations encountered by both primary and emergency care physicians.1Stone R. Acute abdominal pain. Lippincotts Prim Care Pract. 1998;2(4):341-57. 2Cartwright SL Knudson MP. Evaluation of acute abdominal pain in adults.Am Fam Physician. 2008;77(7):971-8. The condition is marked by sudden onset of pain that lasts for less than 24 hours in contrast to chronic cases wherein a long-standing intermittent or continuous pain is observed.3Abdullah M Firmansyah MA. Diagnostic approach and management of acute abdominal pain. Acta Med Indones. 2012 Oct;44(4):344-50. 4American Academy of Pediatrics Subcommittee on Chronic Abdominal Pain; North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology Hepatologyand Nutrition. Chronic abdominal pain in children. Pediatrics.2005;115(3):e370-81. This nociceptive abdominal response can be seen in all age groups; however the severity of pain may vary in individual patients. While in some patients the pain can be benign and has a self-limiting course; in other cases it might be indicative of…
Lactose intolerance is the most common problem limiting milk and dairy products consumption worldwide and is defined as experience of gastrointestinal symptoms following the intake of lactose-containing food products.1Stone R. Acute abdominal pain. Lippincotts Prim Care Pract. 1998;2(4):341-57. Individuals with lactose intolerance exhibit an inability to digest significant amounts of lactose due to deficiency of the intestinal lactase enzyme.2Swagerty DL Jr Walling AD Klein RM. Lactose intolerance. Am Fam Physician. 2002;65(9):1845-50. In this event there is an inability to break down the dietary lactose into glucose and galactose consequently resulting in intolerance to foods which contain lactose and thus a range of intestinal and systemic symptoms (figure 1).3Tomar BS. Lactose intolerance and other disaccharidase deficiency. Indian J Pediatr. 2014;81(9):876-80. 4Babu J Kumar S Babu P et al. Frequency of lactose malabsorption among healthy Southern and Northern Indian populations by genetic analysis and lactose hydrogen breath and tolerance tests. Am J Clin…
