Prevalence of lactose intolerance and lactase deficiency is greatly affected by genetics and ethnic background. Prevalence varies greatly by country, such as Sweden (3%), Denmark (3%), Finland (16%), Switzerland (17%), England (20-30%), France (42%), US caucasians (6%) and USA African Americans (73%); see "The Mediterranean Diets in Health and Disease", by Gene A Spiller, p150 who cites Dahlquist, 1983.
30 million people to 50 million people (NIDDK 1994); about 25% of population (1994/NIDDK)
approx 1 in 9 or 11.03% or 30 million people in USA [about data]
The prevalence of Lactose Intolerance varies too greatly by region for country statistics to be meaningful.
WARNING! EXTRAPOLATED STATISTICS ONLY! Not based on data sources from individual countries. These statistics are calculated extrapolations of various prevalence or incidence rates against the populations of a particular country or region. The statistics used for prevalence/incidence of Lactose Intolerance are typically based on US, UK, Canadian or Australian prevalence or incidence statistics, which are then extrapolated using only the population of the other country. This extrapolation calculation is automated and does not take into account any genetic, cultural, environmental, social, racial or other differences across the various countries and regions for which the extrapolated Lactose Intolerance statistics below refer to. The extrapolation does not use data sources or statistics about any country other than its population. As such, these extrapolations may be highly inaccurate (especially for developing or third-world countries) and only give a general indication (or even a meaningless indication) as to the actual prevalence or incidence of Lactose Intolerance in that region. These statistics are presented only in the hope that they may be interesting to some people.
The word 'prevalence' of Lactose Intolerance usually means the estimated population of people who are managing Lactose Intolerance at any given time (i.e. people with Lactose Intolerance). The term 'incidence' of Lactose Intolerance means the annual diagnosis rate, or the number of new cases of Lactose Intolerance diagnosed each year (i.e. getting Lactose Intolerance). Hence, these two statistics types can differ: a short disease like flu can have high annual incidence but low prevalence, but a life-long disease like diabetes has a low annual incidence but high prevalence. For more information see about prevalence and incidence statistics.
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