People, who cannot stand whole milk, now have an effective solution for this common problem. A new pharmaceutical for animals and human beings is developed in Russian science and research centre “Drugs and Biotechnology”.

Milk has a wicked component among many others – it’s lactose, milk sugar. Human beings and animals assimilate lactose by means of a special intestinal enzyme lactase, which splits milk sugar into glucose and galactose, easily soaked by blood. However, many people, when they become older than three years, show slow decrease of lactase activity. When a human, who has insufficient amount of lactase (this is called hypolactasia), drinks milk, he suffers from a massive digestive disorder. Sometimes sickness lasts for several weeks. Hypolactasia occurs in stomachs of 2-4% of Northern and Western Europeans and 90% of Asians. As for our country, 30-40% Russians and 90% native Siberians and Far East dwellers are unable to assimilate lactose. The problem get worse, when we learn the fact that modern food industry actively uses milk sugar in confectionery and meat products, as weel as in instant porridges and purees. Some sausages may contain several times more lactose than milk does.

Poor milk victims can find relief, taking drugs containing lactase enzyme. Scientists of the United States developed such drugs from mold fungi. They should be taken together with milk. Russia doesn’t produce such pharmaceuticals, however, food producers use “Lactocanescin G20X”, splitting lactose of whey. Moscow researchers used this preparation as a base for another drug “Galactozyme”, which is effective as a curing agent.

“Lactocanescin”’s active ingredient is beta-galactosidase enzyme extracted from Penicillium canescens mold fungus. This enzyme is isolated, concentrated and many times filtered and purified from microorganisms and additives. Such careful purification rises activity of beta-galactosidase more than tenfold, and milk loses its bitter taste after being treated with this enzyme. The drug’s microbiological purity meets all requirements of State Pharmacopoeia.

Pre-clinical toxicity studies of “Galactozyme” were performed in pharmacology and chemotherapy laboratories of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in cooperation with “Toxofarm” company. Experiments, performed on male mice and rats, showed almost no signs of toxicity. Taking “Galactozyme” in doses, which are 2-5 times higher than therapeutic doses, doesn’t do any harm to laboratory animals, shows no effect on blood values and organs’ and tissues’ structure. “Galactozyme” causes no allergy, does no damage to immune system and is non-toxic for embryos. Dry “Galactozyme” can be stored over four years in a dark place under room temperature.

"Galactozyme” developers hope that this drug would allow many humans and animals, suffering from hypolactasia, to enjoy milk, ice cream, butter, milk shakes and many other tasty dairy products.

Source:
    Russian Science News

Kizilova Anna