Lactose intolerance

Will they handle dairy well?

Most adults globally are lactose intolerant — this is the human default. Whether your child can drink milk into adulthood is mostly determined by ancestry.

Mom’s ancestry
e.g. British, Irish, Scandinavian, German, Dutch
Mom themselves intolerant?
Dad’s ancestry
e.g. Italian, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese
Dad themselves intolerant?
Chance of adult lactose intolerance
26%vs. 65% global
Most people don't notice it until adulthood — babies and kids almost universally tolerate milk well.
Compared to global baseline
For your baby25.5%
Global average65.0%
How accurate is this, honestly?
AccuracyAncestry-based

Lactase persistence — the ability to digest milk into adulthood — is the genetic mutation, not the other way around. Mammals are programmed to stop making the lactase enzyme after weaning; humans who can drink milk as adults carry a regulatory variant near the LCT gene that keeps the enzyme on. The canonical variant in Europeans is LCT −13,910*T (Enattah et al. 2002, Nat Genet).

Lactase persistence evolved independently at least four times in the last ~10,000 years — in Northern Europeans, in East African pastoralists (Tishkoff et al. 2007 identified three additional African variants), and in some Middle Eastern populations. That's why ancestry is the strongest single predictor: ~95% of Northern Europeans are persistent, vs. ~10% of East Asians and ~25% of West Africans.

The "intolerance" label can be misleading. Most non-persistent adults can still handle small amounts of lactose (a glass of milk with food, yogurt, hard cheese) without major symptoms. And your kid will be fine either way — we have great alternatives now.

Sources: Enattah NS et al. Nat Genet 30:233–7 (2002), "Identification of a variant associated with adult-type hypolactasia"; Tishkoff SA et al. Nat Genet 39:31–40 (2007), "Convergent adaptation of human lactase persistence in Africa and Europe."

Read the full methodology →
More you might want to know
TraitEye colorTraitHair colorTraitCurly hairTraitBlood typeTraitAdult heightTraitGrowth percentileTraitLefty / rightyTraitColor blindness