The disaccharide lactose is a major constituent of human breast milk. To be taken up from the gut in the nursing infant, this sugar must first be hydrolyzed by LCT present on the external face of enterocytes in microvilli of the small intestine. Mutations that disrupt LCT activity are associated with acute illness in newborn children as lactose fermentation by gut bacteria leads to severe diarrhea. The condition is effectively treated by feeding affected infants a lactose-free formula. This congenital disease is distinct from the down-regulation of LCT expression after weaning in many human populations that is associated with a milder form of lactose intolerance in adults (Jarvela et al. 2009).
The starch in a post-weaning diet is digested by amylases to di- and oligosaccharides that must be further digested to monosaccharides in order to be taken up from the lumen of the small intestine into endothelial cells of the intestinal brush border. If they are not digested, a process in which enterocyte-associated SI plays a central role, they remain in the gut lumen and are fermented by gut bacteria, leading to osmotic and fermentative diarrhea (Naim et al. 2012; Van Beers et al. 1995).
Kolho, KL, Torniainen, S, Järvelä, I
Zimmer, KP, Heine, M, Naim, HY
Büller, HA, Dekker, J, Einerhand, AW, Grand, RJ, Van Beers, EH
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