The following is an extract form an article published by Courtney Kaminski at www.brockpress.com.
Issue date: 10/10/07
"The recommendation to drink three glasses of low-fat milk or eat three servings of other dairy products per day to prevent osteoporosis is another step in the wrong direction," said the Harvard School of Public Health, in a 2005 study on the consumption of dairy products.
Most current university students grew up in the heyday of the "Got Milk?" campaign that had countless celebrities, professional athletes and even cartoon characters sporting milk mustaches in support of drinking milk for strong bones.
Yet, amid this push to get everyone drinking three glasses of milk` a day, some evidence has come forward that suggests that milk may not in fact be the surefire way to stave off osteoporosis, and instead, may in fact be part of the cause.
Unlike the West, most of the globe does not consume cow's milk, and still most of these countries have much lower rates of osteoporosis, than what is experienced in the USA.
Milksucks.com, a Web site dedicated to exposing the alleged myths that have been perpetuated about the health benefits of milk, cites one study that points to milk as a potential cause of osteoporosis.
"In one study, funded by the National Dairy Council, a group of postmenopausal women were given three eight-ounce glasses of skim milk every day for two years, and their bones were compared to those of a control group of women not given the milk. The dairy group consumed 1,400 mg of calcium per day and lost bone at twice the rate of the control group. According to the researchers, 'this may have been due to the average 30 per cent increase in protein intake during milk supplementation ... The adverse effect of increases in protein intake on calcium balance has been reported from several laboratories, including our own'; they then cite 10 other studies."
Milksucks.com also indicates that dairy products contain both saturated fats and cholesterol, which have been linked to causing heart disease, cancer, Crohn's disease, and "a host of childhood illnesses from asthma to diabetes".
There was also a study by Yale University researchers, looking at 34 studies in 16 countries, which demonstrated the highest rates of Osteoporosis were found in countries where people had the highest meat, milk, and animal product intake.
More conclusively, in 2000, a review of all the related research collected since 1985 about the relationship between dairy products and bone health, published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition, stated: "If dairy food intakes confer bone health, one might expect this to have been apparent from the 57 outcomes, which included randomized, controlled trials and longitudinal cohort studies involving 645,000 person-years … There have been few carefully designed studies of the effects of dairy foods on bone health; the body of scientific evidence appears inadequate to support a recommendation for daily intake of dairy foods to promote bone health in the general U.S. population."
Still not convinced that that glass of ice cold refreshing milk is bad for you? Consider that unlike the multi-billion dollar dairy industry, science does not have $300 million annually to debunk the wonders of milk that have been ingrained in Western society.
According to Milksucks.com, "Dr. Walter Willett, veteran nutrition researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that calcium consumption via dairy-product intake 'has become like a religious crusade,' overshadowing true preventive measures such as physical exercise."
While it may be tempting to disregard this and similar Web sites as mere propaganda, it's hard to see a real difference between it and the famous "Got Milk?" advertising campaign. It is reminiscent of the tobacco industry claiming that there was no relation between smoking and cancer. It begs the question: How do you know milk is good for you?
If it is simply because the dairy industry (the same people that will lose the most financially if you stop consuming dairy) told you, then you may want to re-evaluate what you know to be true.
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For a more detailed study of the scientific evidence showing how milk actually increases the risk of osteoporosis, go to www.milkimkperative.com.
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Check out this article to find the most efficient ways of getting the calcium you need to mitigate osteporosis damage and why milk may not be the answer. You might be surprised! http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=242311
Funny coz i tell all my patients to drink milk,everyday to avoid osteoporosis.But exactly how sure are you.
This article is nothing more than deceptive and propagandist. The very same for many other articles here and milksucks.com aswell. We all know that milk is healthy and with good reason too. You don't get any more scientific that that. To link it to cancer and I don't know what else is nothing short of ironic. The writer has obviously little understanding of food science and has never heard of Conjugated linoleic acid(shown to kill human skin cancer, colorectal cancer and breast cancer cells). What's next water is bad for you?
Daniel has fallen into the trap of believing the myth that milk protects against cancer by providing conjugated linoleic acid. Clearly, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) may potentially protect against cancer, but it does not follow that dairy milk protects against cancer. More specifically, dairy milk does not protect against or reduce the risk of colon cancer. The milk industry likes to quote a study carried out by doctors from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, USA (Journal of the National Cancer Institute, July 2004). This study concluded that the consumption of dairy milk reduced the risks of colon cancer. But the study only compared dairy milk to other calcium-laden foods such as yogurt or cheese. This study compared the effects of different dairy products; it did not compare cancer patients who consumed dairy milk with cancer patients who consumed non- animal calcium-rich foods.
Furthermore, the researchers readily admitted that as the study was only based on ten people, it was not conclusive and more research was necessary. The point here is that calcium from whatever source, once absorbed into the body, helps to prevent colon cancer. There is no evidence that dairy milk as such helps prevent colon cancer.
The Brigham study is the only known study that puts dairy milk in what could be called a ‘favourable light’ and naturally the milk industry is milking it for all it’s worth. Numerous other studies show that dairy milk causes cancer. Here are some of the more recent studies:
• Consumption of dairy products leads to an increased risk of lymphatic cancer (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma or NHL). American Journal of Epidemiology, January 2005.
• IGF-I has been identified as a key factor in the growth of cancer. IGF-I is identical in humans and cows. Drinking dairy milk increases IGF-I levels, leading to cancers such as breast cancer, gynecological cancers, and other types of cancer. European J. of Clinical Nutrition, volume 58,9:1211-6, September 2004.
• Women who consume two or more glasses of [cow’s] milk a day have twice the risk of a certain form of ovarian cancer than those who rarely or never consume milk. Intakes of lactose and dairy products, particularly milk, were significantly associated with the risk of serious ovarian cancer.81 This was a study headed by Susanna Larsson at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, in which researchers studied more than 60,000 women.
• We studied more than 13 000 women participants and found that those who ate the most saturated fat were almost twice as likely to develop breast cancer as those who ate the least. Saturated fats are found mainly in full-fat milk, meat and products such as biscuits and cakes. Source: The Lancet, July 2003, 362(9379):212-214.
According to Dr. Michael Lam (USA) MD, MPH, ABAAM, CNCT, several studies have confirmed that milk fat is a recognized source of carcinogenesis because of the saturated fat content of milk, and because milk is an ideal carrier for chemical carcinogens. Dr. Lam sites ovarian cancer as an example: ‘Its incidence parallels dairy eating patterns around the world. The culprit seems to be galactose, the simple sugar broken down from the milk sugar lactose. Animals fed galactose develop ovarian cancer at a much higher rate than control groups. About 10%of the U.S. population lacks the enzymes to metabolize galactose.’ Source: www.LamMD.com.
Russell Eaton,
Author of The Milk Imperative,
www.milkimperative.com.
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