Twenty-three infants and children aged 21 months to 13 years with chronic diarrhoea and 6 patients without diarrhoea were investigated for lactose malabsorption with the hydrogen breath test (HBT) adapted for use in young infants and children. A further 8 children with proven or suspected coeliac disease were also investigated. The HBT was compared with the histology of the jejunal mucosa, muco...

BACKGROUND Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a symptom-based disorder characterized by abdominal pain related to altered bowel habit. We evaluated the predictive power of 2 genetic markers of hypolactasia, C/T_13910 and G/A_22018, in IBS patients with and without lactose intolerance in order to gain insight into the role of lactose intolerance in IBS. METHODS Seventy five patients (59F/16M, m...

The recent advent of high-throughput sequencing and genotyping technologies makes it possible to produce, easily and cost effectively, large amounts of detailed data on the genotype composition of populations. Detecting locus-specific effects may help identify those genes that have been, or are currently, targeted by natural selection. How best to identify these selected regions, loci, or singl...

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of lactose malabsorption and its association with skin color and age in children and teenagers attending public schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil. METHODS A cross-sectional study was performed with 225 subjects between 8 and 18 years attending two public schools in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Patients were randomly selected. Subjects were classified according to ...

Twenty-three infants and children aged 21 months to 13 years with chronic diarrhoea and 6 patients without diarrhoea were investigated for lactose malabsorption with the hydrogen breath test (HBT) adapted for use in young infants and children. A further 8 children with proven or suspected coeliac disease were also investigated. The HBT was compared with the histology of the jejunal mucosa, muco...

Background and aims: The role of nutrition in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer is not fully understood. Milk products are an essential part of human nutrition in Western countries. Absorption of lactose, the main sugar of milk, is regulated by the activity of the lactase enzyme in the gut wall. The activity of lactase is genetically determined and is associated with a C/T single nucleotide...

The prevalence of disease-related malnutrition in patients with cancer ranges from 40% to 80%, which is the highest of all hospital groups. This variation in prevalence is the result of the different definitions of malnutrition used, and it also depends on tumour type, stage and anticancer treatment. Malnutrition is associated with negative outcome, including increased morbidity, poor prognoses...