Dietary Recommendations

Currently, the only treatment available for Galactosemia is a restricted diet.  The latest information regarding dietary recommendations can be found in the guide “Understanding Galactosemia: A Diet Guide”, produced by Abbot Laboratories.  We highly recommend you view the guide here and refer to it with your dietary quesitons.

The goal of dietary restriction is to limit the amount of GALACTOSE in the blood of a person with galactosemia.  GALACTOSE is a sugar found in all dairy products and several fruits, vegatables and other products.  A person with galactosemia lacks an enzyme that breaks galactose down into glucose so the body can use it.  Since this GALACTOSE isn’t being broken down, it builds up as a toxin in the blood basically “poisoning” the person with galactosemia.

There are two ways, we know of, that GALACTOSE gets into the blood, food consumption and the body produces it on it’s own (endogenous production).  We cannot control the endogenous production of galactose, but we can control how much galactose we ingest through food.  Therefore, restricting the diet of those items high in galactose is one way to keep “extra” galactose out of the blood.

For more detailed information about how galactose builds in the body and what enzymes are involved, visit our “About Galactosemia” page on this website.

FOODS AND INGREDIENTS CONTAINING HIGH LEVELS OF GALACTOSE

Milk (cow and goat)

Infant formula made from milk ingredients

Breast Milk

Non-fat dry milk

Buttermilk

Butter

Margarin

Cheese

Cottage Cheese

Cream Cheese

Sour Cream

Yogurt (made from milk)

Cream

Dry Milk

Whey

Milk Protein

Garbanzo Beans (Chickpeas)

Ice Cream

Sherbet

Ghee

Hydrolyzed Protein (when made from casein or whey)

Lactalbumin

Lactoglobulin

Lactose

Organ meats (aka “meat by-products)

The above food items should be strictly avoided