Milk – yes or no?

Over the past decades milk has gone from being the perfect food for children and adults to the drink to avoid.

When you look at the evidence, it makes sense that we shouldn’t really be drinking milk to the extent that we do. However, recently two contradictory reports have been published in various publications and it must be extremely confusing for a lay person to decide whose advice to follow.

Speaking from experience, milk allergy is something many people suffer from and never realise it. It is only when someone stops consuming dairy products that they realise what a huge difference it makes to their wellbeing.

When you really consider the situation, there is no surprise that several people do not find milk palatable. It is produced by an animal to feed its young; that animal has a totally different digestive system to humans. The milk of today can be said to be a highly polluted foodstuff as it contains various chemicals including hormones to which the milk industry cows are now exposed.

The first opinion comes from Italian researchers, who believe that eliminating dairy products could leave people severely short of calcium, and in their opinion, raising the odds of brittle bones and fractures in old age.

The study is the latest to question food intolerances by questioning whether something such as a food intolerance really does exist. It is asking if people who have food intolerances are just ‘fussy eaters’ and the aversion may be ‘all in the mind’.

The research, by the University of Milan, tested more than 100 people who had stomach pain, bloating and diarrhoea and who believed that they were lactose intolerant. Guido Basilico of the University also asked participants about their mental and physical health, including whether they were depressed or suffered from general aches and pains.

Dr Basilico went on to tell the Digestive Disease Week conference in the US that there was no doubt that some people’s genes make it difficult for them to digest lactose and this causes stomach problems when they drink milk.

However, he also stated that many people were perfectly capable of digesting a cappuccino and the lactose it contained. He believed that rather than being intolerant, their symptoms have a psychological basis. His conclusion was that those who complained of what they thought was lactose intolerance should have their mental state assessed rather than blame it onto an intolerance of foodstuffs.

Rather than go on to answer that with the research from many of the previous articles I have written on the subject, I will look at new evidence which reveals that the danger in milk’s allergenic potential together with the inherent indigestibility of certain components of milk could be behind serious mental disorders.

A new book called The Devil in Milk by Kevin Woodford claims that beta-casein, one of the proteins in milk from certain breeds of cows, can cause a wide variety of illnesses. These include heart disease, autism and schizophrenia.

Dr Woodford goes on to highlight proline, an amino acid present in bovine milk, which, 5,000 years ago, underwent a mutation that converted it to histadine, also known as beta-casomorphin-7 (B-CM7).

The older breeds of cows, such as Jerseys, African, Asian, Guernseys, produce milk which still contains proline. However, more recent breeds of cows, such as Holsteins and Friesians, produce milk which contains B-CM7.

Apparently, this is more narcotic than the beta-casein protein of human milk and acts as an opiate in humans. It seems that consuming this amino acid can cause illness.

The book explains that it is milk with this amino acid that leads to a host of autoimmune disorders such as Type 1 diabetes. Dr Woodford explains that the beta-casein also triggers an inflammatory response in blood vessels which interferes with the immune system and causes excess mucus production.

Additional mounting evidence concerns the possibilities of milk products being a major factor behind the neurological impairment in babies and children which leads to autism and schizophrenia.

The theory which Dr Woodford explains in his book is the same theory as that proposed by Andrew Wakefield, who claimed that the MMR vaccine causes damage to the gut, leaving it susceptible to the incomplete breakdown and excessive absorption of peptides that have opioid actions, such as proteins from milk and gluten. In fact, evidence has shown increases in the levels of peptides in people with autism (Autism, 1999).

Other studies have been carried out including some on animals. These may not necessarily apply to humans; however a clinical study found high levels of antibodies to bovine casein in 90 per cent of autistic, and 93 per cent of schizophrenic patients.

Additionally, when placed on a gluten- and casein-free diet, 81 per cent of autistic children showed improvements in most behavioural categories within three months (Nutr. Neurosci., 2000). A Norwegian study of children with autism also came to the same conclusions.

The conclusion is left up to the reader. The research suggests a way to avoid any possible side-effects would be to consume goat’s and sheep’s milk products, which do not contain the offending protein.

kathryn@maltanet.net