Several days ago I had posted a question to the list, asking if anyone could
substantiate the claim that there is lactase present in human milk, as
stated in a Dr. Sears article. I did not receive any responses, so I assume
that means nobody knew or could find any scientific substantiation.

After doing a little research on my own, I thought I'd present my
conclusions, in case anyone was interested.

For lactase, I use the analogy of lye in soap. In making soap, lye is added.
It reacts with the oils, and once the reaction occurs, the lye itself is
gone, and saponification is the end result (assuming the person measured
things correctly). If I understand things correctly, lactase acts in a
similar fashion. When it is exposed to lactose, it breaks it down into
glucose and galactose, which uses it up. It's gone. So it would make sense
that lactase WOULDN'T be present in expressed milk, since it's already been
exposed to the lactose, causing hydrolysis. So in order to determine if
lactase is present AT SOME POINT in milk, we need to look at the end result,
the presence of glucose and galactose.

According to Lawrence's text, mature milk has lactose at a concentration of
6800 mg/100 ml of milk. There are minute amounts of both glucose and
galactose (14 mg/100 ml and 12 mg/100 ml, respectively). This, to me,
implies that yes, there is a minute amount of lactase present in human milk,
which resulted in about 0.4% of the lactose being hydrolyzed. Certainly not
enough to have a significant impact on lactose load. Probably not even
enough to warrant mentioning.

Anyway, I thought I would share my findings, as there were a couple people
who emailed me, asking to post any responses to the list. If someone sees
something incorrect in my hypothesis, please let me know.

Kerry Luskey
Minneapolis

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