Milk - healthy or not?

[NeilC]

I found this in a Guardian article. Made me think about milk. I've sort of dismissed the anti-milk people for a while now as they tend to have other flakey ideas but this has me wondering. Of particular interest were the claims that calcium deficiency in diet is not what causes osteoporosis and it's supposed links to cancer.

What do you make of it?:

Edited by Darat: 

Content in breach of Rule 4 removed.

 

[Cuddles]

If you link to the article, you won't be breaching copyright.

Both sides of the argument are wrong. Milk isn't a magical cure for everything, and it is not an evil product pushed on us by the Milk Marketing Board in it's eternal quest for world domination. It is just food with some stuff in it. Our bodies need calcium, so if we get it from milk, great. If we get it from somewhere else, also great. If people don't do any exercise then it doesn't matter how much milk they drink. The entire argument is just pure nonsense, like saying that apples aren't good for you because if you stop breathing you die, no matter how many apples you eat.

 

[NeilC]

Hmm I think it's a little more specific than that.

Is that all you got from the article? That milk is source of calcium?

 

[skullerello]

Milk is intended for baby cows, not adult humans. Personally, I can't stomach the stuff, and just the thought of it makes me want to retch. It's bad, bad, bad stuff I tell ya'; cow poison!

 

[fls]

I found this in a Guardian article. Made me think about milk. I've sort of dismissed the anti-milk people for a while now as they tend to have other flakey ideas but this has me wondering. Of particular interest were the claims that calcium deficiency in diet is not what causes osteoporosis and it's supposed links to cancer.

What do you make of it?:

I'm not going to go through the whole article, but I'll start with some of the claims.

It starts in infancy. Frank Oski, former paediatrics director at Johns Hopkins school of medicine, estimated in his book Don't Drink Your Milk! that half of all iron deficiency in US infants results from cows' milk-induced intestinal bleeding - a staggering amount, since more than 15% of American under-twos suffer from iron-deficiency anaemia.

The prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia in the under 2 age group is incorrect. For example, the NHANES III found the prevalence in this age group to be 3%. Also, while there is a small increase in intestinal blood loss in infants fed cows' milk, most iron-deficiency anemia is from inadequate iron supplementation, as iron-deficiency anemia is also present in infants that are fed formula without iron or breastfed without iron supplementation.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/conten...9fe6130de077e809fcd2a816&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha

The dairy industry acknowledges (as Hippocrates did) that some people are allergic to milk - though this makes it sound as if the problem lies in the individual's aberrant constitution, rather than in the beverage itself. Yet, when you look at it more closely, the extent of lactose intolerance is extraordinary.

Lactose intolerance is not an allergy. Milk allergy and lactose intolerance are two different problems.

According to various studies, there's a whole catalogue of other illnesses that can be attributed to cows' milk, among them diabetes. A 1992 report in the New England Journal of Medicine corroborated a long-standing theory that proteins in cows' milk can damage the production of insulin in those with a genetic predisposition to diabetes. The dairy industry dismisses this as "just a theory" - along with "myth" and "controversial", a term it applies to almost all studies critical of milk.

The 1992 report found that there were higher levels of anti-BSA (bovine serum albumin) in children with Type 1 diabetes compared to controls. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/327/5/302?query=nextarrow

It would be an error to say that this demonstrated causation.

The anti-milk lobby also claims that consumption of dairy products can aggravate rheumatoid arthritis and has been implicated in colic, acne, heart disease, asthma, lymphoma, ovarian cancer and multiple sclerosis. Major studies suggesting a link between milk and prostate cancer have been appearing since the 1970s, culminating in findings by the Harvard School of Public Health in 2000 that men who consumed two and a half servings of dairy products a day had a third greater risk of getting prostate cancer than those who ate less than half a serving a day. In the same year, T Colin Campbell, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, said that "cows' milk protein may be the single most significant chemical carcinogen to which humans are exposed".

Apparently it cannot be said often enough - "Correlation does not equal causation". None of these claims satisfy the standards used for determing causation. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/hill

The associations are relatively weak which makes confounding likely.

To be honest, if I find egregious errors within the first few paragraphs and obvious bias in the writing, I don't bother with the rest of the article. You are not going to find a balanced and representative survey of the available information, which makes it a waste of time.

Linda

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Milk is intended for baby cows, not adult humans. Personally, I can't stomach the stuff, and just the thought of it makes me want to retch. It's bad, bad, bad stuff I tell ya'; cow poison!

What you said ..

Milk is the perfect food ... For the infants of the mother producing it..

In the case of cow's milk, it is targeted at an infant who is supposed to be growing a couple of pounds a day ...


Yeah, we can use the calcium, but where do you think the calcium in the milk came from ?

 

[fls]

What you said ..

Milk is the perfect food ... For the infants of the mother producing it..

In the case of cow's milk, it is targeted at an infant who is supposed to be growing a couple of pounds a day ...


Yeah, we can use the calcium, but where do you think the calcium in the milk came from ?

This is kind of a silly argument. Nothing that we eat is produced for the purpose of human consumption. Meat is for animal locomotion, eggs are for nourishment of embryos, roots are for the sustenance of the plant, seeds are for the propagation of plants, etc.

Linda

 

[Morrigan]

To be honest, even if it's true, it probably won't stop me from drinking all the milk I drink, especially not with chocolate chip cookies. I've been drinking it reguilarly for way too long to stop now, and besides, what ARE you going to drink with those delicious chocolate chip cookies?

Seriously, I'm probably screwed if there is indeed a link between milk and ovarian cancer, as my mother died of ovarian cancer (she didn't drink that much milk, but they say family antecedents are a high indicator). But screw it, we're all going to die of something, and in nutrition it seems the data always changes anyway. Might as well eat what you want, with moderation of course (to avoid at least nasty short term effects) but without harsh limits that prevent one from enjoying a good meal.

 

[Chris Haynes]

...The prevalence of iron-deficiency anemia in the under 2 age group is incorrect. For example, the NHANES III found the prevalence in this age group to be 3%. Also, while there is a small increase in intestinal blood loss in infants fed cows' milk, most iron-deficiency anemia is from inadequate iron supplementation, as iron-deficiency anemia is also present in infants that are fed formula without iron or breastfed without iron supplementation.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/conten...130de077e809fcd2a816&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha....

As a mother who breastfed all of my children at least a year each (one self-weaned at one year, the other two went to 2 years old... both of whom refused to have anything to do with a bottle)... I had to supplement their iron intake with something like this:
http://www.meadjohnson.com/products/cons-infant/p1539-09.html ... At least until they graduated up to baby cereal which often has iron in it (often made with breastmilk).

One child refused anything but breastmilk until he was 6 months old, so he was on the drops the longest.

There are entire cultures who depend on milk from various animals. They seem to do okay (India, Tibet, etc)... Then there are other cultures who do well without milk from certain mammals (I'm thinking of Chinese, where a good source of calcium is creating soup broth by boiling bones).

I usually find these pro-milk versus anti-milk articles often very silly (especially when they screw up the pediatric iron stuff).

 

[CFLarsen]

Can we see the evidence?

I'm not talking about talking about evidence. I'm talking about seeing actual evidence.

Catch m'drift?

Don't make me ask again. Believers have been known to crack, when that happens....

 

[ynot]

This is kind of a silly argument. Nothing that we eat is produced for the purpose of human consumption. Meat is for animal locomotion, eggs are for nourishment of embryos, roots are for the sustenance of the plant, seeds are for the propagation of plants, etc.

Linda

I blame God! Why is it that he/she/it designed us to live from killing and eating other things? Why can't we just absorb energy directly from the sun?

 

[fls]

I blame God! Why is it that he/she/it designed us to live from killing and eating other things? Why can't we just absorb energy directly from the sun?

That's a good question. Why don't we see complex animals that photosynthesize?

Linda

 

[ynot]

That's a good question. Why don't we see complex animals that photosynthesize?

Linda

Imagine the toilet paper it would save!

 

[WildCat]

Milk is intended for baby cows, not adult humans. Personally, I can't stomach the stuff, and just the thought of it makes me want to retch. It's bad, bad, bad stuff I tell ya'; cow poison!

I couldn't agree more... vile, disgusting stuff. When I was little and my mom made me drink the stuff I would gag on it and nearly vomit. It's fine for cooking, but that's about it for me. And don't ask me to smell it to see if it's still good or not, it all smells rancid to me. Blech...

 

[fls]

Imagine the toilet paper it would save!

But I'd probably get behind in my reading.

Linda

 

[Jorghnassen]

I couldn't agree more... vile, disgusting stuff. When I was little and my mom made me drink the stuff I would gag on it and nearly vomit. It's fine for cooking, but that's about it for me. And don't ask me to smell it to see if it's still good or not, it all smells rancid to me. Blech...

Then what do you drink to help all that chocolate fondue go down so you can have more?

 

[jimlintott]

On a daily basis I drink water, coffee (black, no sugar) and milk in that order. I don't drink soda pop but prefer beer. I don't drink much fruit juice. I do love my milk though. Whole milk only. If I want water I drink water.

Now the wierd part. If I don't drink any milk or have any dairy for about five days I start to feel off. Not really ill but just not right. About a half litre of milk or even some yoghurt and I feel better. Maybe it's some sort of placebo effect. Does it make any sense for this to happen?

 

[Dark Jaguar]

Only if there's something in the milk you aren't getting any other way. Otherwise, you may be right it's just in your head.

Me? I'm a milk addict, and I think that might be literally true at this point.

 

[casebro]

Can we see the evidence?

I'm not talking about talking about evidence. I'm talking about seeing actual evidence.

Catch m'drift?

Don't make me ask again. Believers have been known to crack, when that happens....

CF, you are talking about the nursing, aren't you?

 

[snooziums]

I thought it is better for your health than soda is. And I thought that milk in coffee is better than artificial creamer.

Maybe I should give up liquids and coffee (which is one), since there is nothing left, except for juice.