Word.ws English Dictionary

lactase persistence

lactase persistence noun: the continued activity of the lactase enzyme in adulthood, allowing the digestion of lactose in milk.

Noun

lactase persistence (uncountable)

  1. The continued activity of the lactase enzyme in adulthood, allowing the digestion of lactose in milk.
    • Lactase persistence is under fairly direct genetic control and involves genes that inhibit the typical mammalian shutdown of the production of lactase after nursing ends.2016, Joseph Henrich, chapter 6, in The Secret of Our Success […] , Princeton: Princeton University Press, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    lactose tolerance

Synonyms of lactase persistence

  • lactose tolerance

Questions about lactase persistence

What does lactase persistence mean?
Lactase persistence means the continued activity of the lactase enzyme in adulthood, allowing the digestion of lactose in milk.
What part of speech is lactase persistence?
Lactase persistence is a noun.

Words near lactase persistence in the dictionary

  1. lactariids
  2. lactarine
  3. lactarium
  4. lactary
  5. lactase
  6. lactase persistence
  7. lactases
  8. lactasin
  9. lactataemia
  10. lactate
  11. lactate dehydrogenase

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lactase persistence (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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