CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Lactose intolerance is a problem suffered by a large part of the world population. The simplest solution is to remove (partially or completely) dairy products from diet. However, a more convenient alternative from the nutritional viewpoint would be to replace the intake of regular dairy products by others in which the lactose content has been modified. In effect, the dairy products with reduced-lactose and free-lactose content are examples of added-value products, whose production is targeted to a specific group of consumers. The increased manufacture of these dairy products is driven by the increasing knowledge we have on lactose intolerance problem. There are different technological methods to modify the lactose content in dairy products, such as enzymatic hydrolysis, ultrafiltration and chromatography. The lactose hydrolysis using b-galactosidases is the strategy most widely used in the industry, being possible to obtain products with low lactose levels. A wide range of this type of products such as milks, creams, ice-creams and fermented milks, are commercially available around the world. In Latin America, which records a very high incidence of deficient-lactase individuals, there are available delactosed products such as fluid and powder milks and some fermented milks. The consumption of fermented dairy products has undergone a rapid increase in Argentina, where the yogurt is the most popular product. In this context, we are working on different aspects about the production of lactose-hydrolysed yogurt, as this product is not still available in the Argentinean market. The purpose of this contribution is to review the current knowledge about the intolerance lactose problem and the reduced-lactose dairy products, with special emphasis on the applied technological processes. Also includes preliminary results obtained by our research group.