Over the years we have been used to hearing that milk is good for us. A new study has found that it can cause premature death and that it doesn’t even protect against fractures and osteoporosis. I have been writing about this frequently, and, personally, I haven’t touched dairy products for over a decade.

When you think about it, logically, it is rather strange that humans spend their lives drinking the milk of another species. Calves have a four-stomach digestive system. Nature has designed the milk of each animal species specifically to meet the needs of its young.

The level of casein protein in cows’ milk is 300 times higher than in human breast milk, which is predominantly made up of the protein lactalbumin, which is easily digestible by human babies.

Casein is intended to be broken down by the four stomachs in a cow. In human stomachs it coagulates and forms large, tough, dense curds that are difficult to digest.

When the protein of another animal is introduced into the human body, it can cause an allergic reaction (J. Allergy, 1968). The most common symptoms are chronic runny nose, persistent sore throat, hoarseness, bronchitis and recurrent ear infections.

The mucous membranes lining the joints and lungs can become swollen or inflamed, thus contributing to rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.

Some babies are so sensitive that they may even react badly to cow’s milk that the mother consumes. In one study, babies who had reacted to foods eaten by their mothers were monitored and once the mother had stopped eating or drinking specific foods (cow’s milk and eggs were included), the babies’ symptoms cleared up (Health Hazards of Milk, Freed DLJ, 1984).

Cow’s milk can also clog the arteries of babies and young children. A pathologist in Derbyshire, England noted that out of 16 cot deaths, the only baby with normal arteries was the one who was breastfed.

The level of casein protein in cow’s milk is 300 times higher than in human breast milk

Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden believe the milk paradox is due to D-galactose, a nutrient produced by the body when digesting lactose, a milk sugar.

Even at low doses, animal studies have shown that D-galactose accelerates the ageing process, shortens the life span through oxidative stress (the release of damaging free-radical molecules), triggers chronic inflammation, weakens the immune system and increases the risk of neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

The process of ageing seems to start when people drink one to two glasses of milk each day. One glass of cow’s milk will produce 5g of D-galactose in the body.

This is not new to nutritionists and alternative therapists who have been advising for years that dairy products are one of the chief causes of allergies.

However, the size of the Swedish study and its emphatic conclusions should make the mainstream healthcare bodies sit up and take notice.

The research tracked the health and diets of 61,433 women aged between 39 and 74 and 45,339 men aged from 45 to 79 for 20 years. Some of the findings were astonishing.

Women who were drinking three or more pints of milk a day were twice as likely to have died prematurely as those who drank less than a pint a day. Every pint represented a 1.15 times higher risk of premature death.

Even more astonishing, milk was not doing what it was expected to do. The milk drinkers were suffering from more fractures than the non-drinkers. In fact, they were up to 1.13 times more likely to have broken bones, especially a hip fracture. This is, again, not news. This paradox was highlighted in studies nearly 40 years ago.

An earlier study exposed that people in the US and Scandinavian countries consume more dairy products than anywhere else in the world, yet they still have the highest rates of osteoporosis.

Other studies, while noting the paradox, have come up with reasons for it. Milk is supposed to be the greatest natural source of calcium and we are told to consume plenty of calcium to prevent osteoporosis.

Yet dairy products can increase the rate at which calcium is lost from the body and so hasten osteoporosis. As well as being high in calcium, dairy is also a high protein food. Too much protein in the diet (of any source) results in the body having to get rid of the excess.

To do this, the kidneys have to work harder and lose calcium in doing so in a process known as protein-induced hypercalciuria.

One study involving a group of nearly 78,000 women from the ongoing US National Institutes of Health-funded Nurses’ Health Study, who were followed for 12 years, could find no protective effect of increased milk consumption on the risk of bone fractures (Am. J. Clin. Nutr., 2001).

Another condition which could be worsened or triggered is ankylosing spondylitis, a disease which first affects the spine and then fuses together the bones in the spinal column.

Conventional medicine is uncertain of the cause but believes it could be hereditary. Researchers advised 25 sufferers to stop including dairy products in their diets. After six weeks, 13 patients reported improvements, such as less pain and morning stiffness, fewer joint and spine symptoms, and less of a need for painkilling non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (Nsaids, Ann. Rheum. Dis., 1994).

There are other foods that can supply calcium to the body, as well as performing regular weight-bearing exercises to strengthen bones.

kathryn@maltanet.net

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.