Here's an interesting article about Milk - the not
so
perfect food, reprinted from the July 2005 issue
of
Shared
Vision a health and personal growth
magazine
from Vancouver Canada
Milk: the Not-So-Perfect Food
New evidence contradicts old advice
Alicia Priest
From the perspective of the status quo, it was
the
kind of "news" that's best ignored. So that's
exactly what most newspapers, radio, and TV
outlets
did-
even though the revelation appeared in a
respected,
peer-reviewed science journal and the subject
concerned the health of millions of children and
young adults.
In March, the journal Pediatrics published an
article
titled "Calcium, Dairy Products, and Bone Health
in
Children and Young Adults: A Re-evaluation of
the
Evidence." The scientists who did the review
belong
to the Washington, D.C.-based organization
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
PCRM
members are often dismissively referred to as
animal-
rights advocates.
They de-scribe
themselves
as "doctors and laypersons working together for
compassionate and effective medical practice,
research, and health promotion."
However you view them, you can't knock their
methodology. The scientists examined 58
published
studies on the relationship between calcium,
dairy
products, and bone health.
After excluding
studies
that did not control for exercise, weight,
puberty, or
vitamin D-all things that influence bones-they
concluded that there is "scant evidence" that
dairy
products promote bone health in children.
That conclusion contradicts everything we're told
about cow juice, first by our mothers and then
by
the government and dairy industry. Milk is listed
as
one of the four basic food groups by the Canada
Food Guide, which recommends that teens have
three to four milk servings a day, adults two to
three. The U.S. government recently boosted its
milk
recommendation from two cups to three cups a
day
for everyone above age nine.
Milk is touted as Mother Nature's near-perfect
food.
Indeed, the current B.C. Dairy Foundation ad
campaign-aimed at kids and teens-features a
thawed-out caveman who now drinks milk.
Why? "Because, of course," the ad says, "it's
always
been survival of the fittest." (The ads, found at
drinkmilk.ca, are very clever and screamingly
funny.)
But, you've got to wonder if milk is really
essential.
Physical activity and vitamin D are just as
critical to
building bones as calcium is. True, there are few
food
sources for vitamin D and it is added to milk.
The
main source, however, is the sun on our skin, a
good
reason to spend some time outdoors every day,
preferably half-naked.
Being active and being outdoors could partially
explain what's known as the calcium paradox.
That's
the puzzle of why societies that consume the
most
dairy also have the highest rates of osteoporosis
and
broken bones.
People in Asia, for instance,
drink
almost no milk and have a very low incidence of
bone
fractures.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell is professor of nutritional
biochemistry at Cornell University. He headed a
massive epidemiological study of the traditional
Chinese diet, disease, and lifestyle called "The
China
Project.
" From 1983 to 1990, Cornell
researchers
visited more than 10,000 people in 130 villages
across China from the southern coast to the Gobi
desert. They found a population that relied on
plant-
based sources such as vegetables and whole
grains
for their calcium. The populations also had much
less
heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity
than
North Americans.
See Campbell's recent
book,
The
China Study: the Most Comprehensive Study of
Nutrition Ever Conducted.
"Dairy consumption in China was essentially zero
for
most of their history," Campbell says during an
interview from Ithaca, New York. "And, of
course,
according to the dogma and the assumptions
that we
have in the West, we would assume that, if
dairy
consumption is not high enough, we're going to
run
the risk of osteoporosis. It certainly is not true."
And then there's the argument that humans, like
other animals, were never designed to drink milk-
especially from another species-after they'd
finished
their mothers' milk. If your ancestors came from
Great Britain, Scandinavia, France, Germany, or
the
Netherlands, you likely can drink cow milk
without an
unpleasant reaction.
If they came from
Eastern
Europe, Russia, Greece, Italy, or another
Mediterranean country, you may or may not be
able
to. But if they come from just about anywhere
else
on the globe, chances are you can't consume
dairy
without a loud protest from your body. People
who
are lactose intolerant lack the enzyme needed to
digest milk. Symptoms of lactose intolerance
include
cramping, bloating, gas, stomach pain, and
diarrhea.
A few years ago, scientists identified the gene
responsible for lactose intolerance. Because it is
found in all lactose-intolerant people across
distant
ethnic groups, they deduced that it is a very old
gene and is, in fact, the original form. When
humans
migrated north and started milking cows as a
survival
strategy 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, the gene
mutated to allow them to digest milk.
Lactose intolerance is the biological norm. No
caveman ever touched cow milk.
