60% of adults can't digest milk - (me, too!)

This article was in USA Today, and I've been dealing with a Lactose intolerance since I was about 20 years old *that's 27 years of it*- and when you're 1) eating out or 2) buying pre-prepared food/frozen food, there is LOTS of milk-product in everything. It makes it difficult to enjoy a meal, because in the 20 minutes it takes to digest, the bad reactions start... and Lactaid doesn't work for me. If you have stomach upset a lot, chances are you're somewhat lactose intolerant and need to be more careful about what you're eating.
FROM USA TODAY: People who are lactose intolerant can't digest the main sugar —lactose— found in milk. In normal humans, the enzyme that does so —lactase— stops being produced when the person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon, where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating, nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you're American or European it's hard to realize this, but being able to digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation.
It's not normal. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0% of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the world's highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Being able to digest milk is so strange that scientists say we shouldn't really call lactose intolerance a disease, because that presumes it's abnormal. Instead, they call it lactase persistence, indicating what's really weird is the ability to continue to drink milk.