Response to a Research Article Entitled: Prevalence of Lactose Intolerance and its Association with Malnutrition in Children
Abstract
With clearly outlined prospects for research, I congratulate Dr. Neel Kanth and colleagues for their interesting study on the “Prevalence of lactose intolerance and its association with malnutrition in children”, published in a recent issue of the National Journal of Health Sciences (NJHS, Volume 4, Issue 3, 2019) [1]. The high prevalence of lactose intolerance documented by the authors is confirmed by a recent meta-analysis, which found a lactose malabsorption among adults and children aged 10 years or older of 58% in Pakistan [2]. The 2018 Pakistan National Nutrition Survey also showed that 40.2% children were stunned, 28.9% were underweight, and 17.7% were wasted [3]. The authors rightly pointed out that further research is urgently needed to better understand the association of lactose intolerance and malnutrition in children [1]. However, in my opinion, here are two aspects
worth mentioning.