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...or is it just a name for the heightened ability for a body to turn foodstuffs into byproducts that include a gaseous component? Are we inventing conditions for things that are part of the normal spectrum of human experience?
Yes, we are "inventing conditions for things that are part of the normal spectrum of human experience", but lactose intolerance is not one of them. :)
If I had lactose intolerance (which I don't), I'd find it much more comfortable saying, "I have lactose intolerance."
Instead of saying, "When I eat or drink any sort of dairy products, I become very gassy, sometimes I puke, sometimes I get diarrhoea, and it always gives me a bout of acne for a week."
Labelling things for ease of communication is part of human nature.
I'm pretty sure the purpose of this post is to point out how ridiculous it is for laymen to question people's medical (including psychological) conditions on the basis that they don't seem serious or unusual to somebody with no medical training.
If so, I completely agree with them. The notion that disorders such as ADHD, Asperger Syndrome, and depression are made up or over diagnoses is common among laymen and popular media, but not among scientists and medical professionals. The issue of whether any medical condition exists and how it should be treated is a matter of scientific studies and scientific debate, not the feelings of unqualified people (except, of course, for individual patients who feel that their medication or treatment isn't right for them specifically). It's really difficult to get accommodations and cope with a disability when you constantly have to defend yourself from people who think you're faking.
Lactose intolerance exists and is the result of a species (Humans) that refuses to give up breast milk past infancy. Around the age of 4 or 5 a significant portion of our ability to digest lactose disappears as the enzymes in our stomach adapt to a diet with solid foods. If you really think about it; you're drinking the breast milk of a completely different species. It's fucked. I'm super lactose intolerant, can only drink plant milks, and between 60-90 percent of any given human population is lactose intolerant. Europeans famously have a better tolerance for lactose. As a matter of fact, statistically, people who are NOT lactose intolerant are abnormal, not vice versa.
Why does it even matter?
Short-sightedness is another condition within the "normal spectrum human experience" (which is a very subjective spectrum by the way, so essential useless if you want to apply it the whole of humanity who will have different opinions on it), but it's still important to categorise people who have it because it's very simple to treat and instantly make someone's life easier. The same can be said for lactose intolerance.
You shouldn't define a condition as something abnormal because, as anyone who has spent even a short portion of time on this site knows, normality is subjective.
Giving a condition a label just makes it easier to define it and group it and treat it, which is the only important thing.
So yes, lactose intolerance exists insofar as any condition exists. All conditions are real, whether you personally think they are worth naming is another matter. I think they are.