Remedy or Ripoff Lactagen

Lisa Gilbar is just like the millions of Americans who are lactose intolerant. “I would just get really bad stomach aches, like horrible cramping,” says Lisa. Patients with lactose intolerance can’t normally digest dairy products. It happens when the small intestine stops producing lactase…the enzyme that digests the milk protein lactose.

Then, Lisa found out about Lactagen, a new product that claims to essentially cure people of their lactose intolerance. It contains lactobacillus acidophilus, a bacteria that can digest lactose...found in many dairy products like yogurt. It also contains sugars used to prime and train the bacteria to grow and digest lactose. Lactagen’s claim: use the powder for 38 days…and your days of avoiding milk products are over…or you get your 149.99 refunded through a money back guarantee.

 Dr. Chris Landen is a pediatric lung specialist and medical talk show host in California who led this study on Lactagen. He says, he himself was skeptical at first. But not after the study was completed. “At the end of the study period and in the months following, there was a significant difference in terms of the symptoms that really mattered to a patient: the flatulence, diarrhea, stomach discomfort, loud intestinal noises and so forth,” says Dr. Landen.

 But Dr. Brett Bernstein, a gastroenterologist and Director of Endoscopy at Beth Israel Medical Center, says, “This is in fact one study. It does demonstrate a difference, but I would not draw any conclusions based on this alone. “This was done in a proper fashion and I think we have very believable results,” states Dr. Landen. Dr. Landen says, the benefits will persist 90 days out.

But the President of Lactagen, Andrew Rtter, pushes this much further. “People who have taken it 10 years ago are still symptom-free today.” Dr. Bernstein doesn’t buy that. “These bacteria cannot survive for a long time inside the GI track, and they have to be taken on a regular basis if they are going to maintain their beneficial effects. This is not a product that you can take for a limited period of time, stop, and then continue to derive the benefit that they are proposing you would get from the product.”

Still, Lisa swears by it; at the end of the program…she drank a full glass of milk. “Since then I have been able to eat pizza and ice cream and cheese and all my favorite foods. It has been a year and no side effects, nothing; it is supposed to be for life and so far it is.” Dr. Bernstein says this is not a breakthrough, but rather a repackaging of ingredients available elsewhere. He says more studies showing it works, and how it works, is needed. Lactagen says they are considering doing just that.