The largest concentration of Jews is in Bergen County (83,700), Essex County (76,200), Monmouth County (65,000), Middlesex County (45,000), Cherry Hill and southern New Jersey (49,000), Ocean County in the Northeast (29,000), Union County (30,000), and Atlantic and Cape May counties (15,800).
Classic galactosemia occurs when an enzyme called galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase (GALT) is missing or not functional. This liver enzyme is responsible for breaking down galactose (a sugar byproduct of lactose found in breast milk, cowâs milk and other dairy foods) into glucose.
The patient with clinical variant galactosemia also carries deleterious mutations in both copies of their GALT gene, but one or both mutations leave a small amount of residual GALT activity. In the vast majority of cases, the GALT mutations in classic and clinical variant galactosemia are inherited so that both parents of an affected child are carriers. Rare exceptions occur. Patients with classic galactosemia are sometimes described as having the genetic makeup G/G..