Live a healthier life, avoid cancer, heart issues, diabetes and arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.
Related to health issues
I sat in my college nutrition class listening to my professor talk about nutrition. He mentioned that you could be a vegan or vegetarian and meet all your requirements to be healthy. I thought to myself, “Oh this guy is crazy! You need to eat meat, I mean, where would you get your protein from?”
I have been athletic all my life and was good at all the sports I played growing up. I maintained great fitness throughout adulthood. In 2004 I decided I wanted to run a marathon. I started running in high school and have always maintained a steady base of 3-6 miles. I figured I would read up on training for a marathon and do it right, nutrition and all.
My diet at the time consisted mainly of meat, dairy, potatoes, bread, with a little bit of fruit and vegetables. I had no problems at all with my marathon training program until I reached my higher mileage of 12+ miles. At one point I had run a few 18 milers and my body said no way. My joints were achy and it took me a week to recover just from one long run. On top of that, my immune system was crashing. I was getting sick frequently and my digestive problems seemed to get worse. I was 33 at the time and thought this should not be happening. So I backed off the running but kept my goal of running a marathon for a later date.
In the meantime, I had three young children I was raising. The colds and flus were never-ending and the diagnosis of my oldest daughter with juvenile arthritis was all I could take. I knew diet and disease were related so I decided to do some research. I learned that dairy can have horrible health effects on children. So I immediately eliminated all milk products from their diets. Once we eliminated it, my children’s health turned around. For myself, I put dairy aside too. I was stronger, less achy and soon able to run my first marathon.
Given the good results we were having sans dairy, I decided to do some research on eliminating meat. After a year, I decided that going on a plant-based diet would be a great thing to do. Shortly after all the animal-based food was gone, my health and athletic performance improved again. And in 2009 I finished my first Ironman race. I loved it so much I did it again in 2010 and finished an hour faster. On top of that I have finished numerous marathons and ultra-marathons. My recovery is faster than ever, and frequent colds are a thing of the past.
All the vitamins and minerals I get from plants aid in my recovery and keep me going strong. I have not supplemented with any protein powders of any sort and I have never felt stronger and healthier in my life. I am hoping this year will be the year I finish my first 100-mile ultra-marathon. I wish I could let my college professor know he was right.
The Paleo Diet Is Uncivilized (And Unhealthy and Untrue)
Low-carbohydrate (low-carb) diets are fueling the destruction of human health and our planet Earth. “Low-carbohydrate” means a diet high in animal foods and low in plant foods. Only plants synthesize carbohydrates (sugars). The body parts of animals, including red meat, poultry, seafood, and fish, and eggs, contain no carbohydrates. Animal secretions (like mammalian milk) contain sugars synthesized by plants (the cow eats the grass that made the sugar). The original Atkins Diet is the ultimate in low-carb eating. This diet works by starving the human body of carbohydrates in order to induce a state of illness (ketosis), which can result in weight loss. People become too sick to eat too much.
In an attempt to remedy the obvious harms to human health caused by very low-carb eating, apologists (including the Atkins Nutritionals) have added fruits and non-starchy vegetables to their programs. This effort is supposed to disguise, and compensate for, the unhealthy effects of consuming animal foods at every meal.
The Paleo Diet: The Newest Promoter of Eating the Planet and Its Inhabitants to Death
The Paleo Diet (also referred to as the Paleolithic Diet, the Paleodiet, the Caveman Diet, the Stone Age Diet, and the Hunter-Gatherer Diet) is the most recent and popular approach to weight loss, improved health, and longevity, and is accomplished by eating large amounts of animal-derived foods (which are no-carbohydrate, and high-protein and/or high-fat foods). The Paleo Diet consists mainly of meat, poultry, shellfish, fish, and eggs; non-starchy orange, green, and yellow vegetables; and fruits and nuts. This approach forbids starches, including all grains, legumes, and potatoes. To its credit it also excludes dairy products and refined sugars. Salt and processed oils (with the exception of olive oil) are also excluded.
This nutritional plan is based on the presumption that our ancestors, living during the Paleolithic era—a period of time from 10,000 to 2.5 million years ago—were nourished primarily by animal foods. According to the basic theory behind Paleo dieting, as a result of more than two millions of years of evolution, we are now genetically adapted to eat what the hunter-gathers ate—mostly animal foods.
The Paleo Diet book (revised 2011) is “the bible” for followers of this approach (page numbers from this book are found in parenthesis in this article). Written by Loren Cordain, PhD, Professor in the Department of Health and Exercise Science at Colorado State University, the Paleo Diet is said to be “the one and only diet that ideally fits our genetic makeup.” (p 3) The author claims that every human being on Earth ate this way for the past 2.5 million years, until the dawn of the Agriculture Revolution (10,000 years ago), when grains, legumes, and potatoes were introduced worldwide. According to Dr. Cordain, “…there wasn’t a single person who did not follow the Paleo Diet.” (p 71). With the development of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, “Paleo experts” teach that human health and longevity plummeted. By no coincidence, the Agriculture Revolution marks the dawn of civilization. “Civilization” encompasses our advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development, marked by progress in the arts, music, sciences, languages, writing, computers, transportation, and politics.
“If You Repeat a Lie Often Enough, It becomes the Truth”
Teachers of Paleo nutrition claim our ancient ancestors were hunter-gathers with an emphasis on hunting, regardless of what the bulk of current scientific research reports. They base their hypothesis largely upon a flawed review of contemporary hunter-gathers.
Primates, including humans, have practiced hunting and gathering for millions of years. I know of no large populations of primates who have been strict vegans (ate no animal foods at all). However, plants have, with very few exceptions, provided the bulk of the calories for almost all primates. This truth has been unpopular in part because of a well-recognized human trait, sexism. Grandparents, women, and children did the gathering, while men hunted. Glory always goes to the hunters.
When asked about the commonly held idea that ancient people were primarily meat-eaters, the highly respected anthropologist, Nathanial Dominy, PhD, from Dartmouth College responded, “That’s a myth. Hunter-gathers, the majority of their calories come from plant foods…meat is just too unpredictable.” After studying the bones, teeth, and genetics of primates for his entire career as a biological anthropologist, Dr. Dominy, states, “Humans might be more appropriately described as ‘starchivores.’”
Paleo diet proponents spare no effort to ignore and distort science. The general public is at their mercy until they look for themselves at recent publications from the major scientific journals:
* Research published in the journal Nature (on June 27, 2012) reports that almost the entire diet of our very early human ancestors, dating from 2 million years ago, consisted of leaves, fruits, wood, and bark—a diet similar to modern day chimpanzees.
* According to research presented in a 2009 issue of Science, people living in what is now Mozambique, along the eastern coast of Africa, may have followed a diet based on the cereal grass sorghum as long as 105,000 years ago.
* Research presented in a 2011 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science shows that even the Neanderthals ate a variety of plant foods; starch grains have been found on the teeth of their skeletons everywhere from the warm eastern Mediterranean to chilly northwestern Europe. It appears they even cooked, and otherwise prepared, plant foods to make them more digestible—44,000 years ago.
* A 2010 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencereported that starch grains from wild plants were identified on grinding tools at archeological sites dating back to the Paleolithic period in Italy, Russia, and the Czech Republic. These findings suggest that processing vegetables and starches, and possibly grinding them into flour, was a widespread practice in Europe as far back as 30,000 years ago, or even earlier.
Falsehoods leading the general public to choose foods that threaten our very existence have been challenged for decades, but as I have said before, people like to hear good news about their bad habits; so the Paleo Diet continues to get a highly visible platform with too little public debate.
The Hunter-gather Diet Is Repulsive
Dr. Cordain writes, “For most of us, the thought of eating organs is not only repulsive, but is also not practical as we simply do not have access to wild game.” (p 131). In addition to the usual beef, veal, pork, chicken, and fish, a Paleo follower is required to eat; alligator, bear, kangaroo, deer, rattlesnake, and wild boar are also on the menu. Mail-order suppliers for these wild animals are provided in his book.
More than half (55%) of a Paleo dieter’s food comes from lean meats, organ meats, fish, and seafood. (p 24) Eating wild animals is preferred, but grocery store-bought lean meat from cows, pigs, and chickens works, too. Bone marrow or brains of animals were both favorites of pre-civilization hunter-gathers. (p 27) For most of us the thought of eating bone marrow and brains is repulsive. But it gets worse.
No mention is made by Paleo experts about the frequent and habitual practices of nutritional cannibalism by hunter-gather societies. (Nutritional cannibalism refers to the consumption of human flesh for its taste or nutritional value.) Archeologists have found bones of our ancestors from a million years ago with de-fleshing marks and evidence of bone smashing to get at the marrow inside; there are signs that the victims also had their brains eaten. Children were not off the menu. And we are supposed to eat the favorite meats of our uncivilized, pre-Agriculture Revolution, hunter-gather, ancestors?
The Paleo Diet Is a Nutritional Nightmare
By nature, the Paleo Diet is based on artery-clogging saturated fats and cholesterol, and bone-damaging, acidic proteins from animal foods. Respected researchers find that those modern-day hunter-gather populations who base their diets on meat, such as the Inuits (Eskimos), suffer from heart disease and other forms of atherosclerosis, and those modern-day hunter-gathers who base their diets on plant foods (starches) are free of these diseases. Osteoporosis, from their high animal food-based diets, is also epidemic among meat and fish consuming hunter-gathers, specifically the Inuits.
In an attempt to defend eating animals, Paleo teachers believe the harmful nutrients from these foods are counteracted by the addition of non-starchy fruits and vegetables, and nuts and seeds.
Furthermore, according to Dr. Cordain, a diet very high in animal protein foods would cause a person to become seriously ill with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and eventually death from protein toxicity (also known as “rabbit starvation”). (p 105). For most people the dietary ceiling for protein is 200 to 300 grams a day or about 30 to 40 percent of the normal daily calorie intake. The Paleo Diet is as high as 35% protein. (p 24) Contradicting his warnings, Dr. Cordain consistently and frequently emphasizes that “Protein is the dieter’s friend.” (p 48).
Eating animal-derived foods causes our most common diseases for many well-established reasons, including the indisputable facts that they contain no dietary fiber, are filthy with disease-causing microbes (including mad cow prions, and E. coli and salmonella bacteria), and contain the highest levels of poisonous environmental chemicals found in the food chain. Remember, disease-causing red meats, poultry, fish, and eggs make up 55% of the Paleo Diet.
The June 21, 2012 issue of the British Medical Journal presented the latest updates on the long-term health hazards of low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets, and reported that, “In particular, women had a 5% higher incidence of cardiovascular disease (heart disease) for each tenth of an increase in the low carbohydrate-high protein score, yielding a 62% higher incidence among women in the highest categories of low carbohydrate-high protein diets compared with the lowest.” These low-carb diets, from Atkins to Paleo, are simply dangerous.
Paleo Nutrition Contradicts the Obvious: Most People Have Lived on Starch-based Diets
All large populations of trim, healthy people, throughout verifiable human history, have obtained the bulk of their calories from starch. Examples of once-thriving people include Japanese, Chinese, and other Asians eating sweet potatoes, buckwheat, and/or rice; Incas in South America eating potatoes; Mayans and Aztecs in Central America eating corn; and Egyptians in the Middle East eating wheat. There have been only a few small isolated populations of primitive people, such as the Arctic Eskimos, living at the extremes of the environment, who have eaten otherwise.
Therefore, scientific documentation of what people have eaten over the past thirteen thousand years convincingly supports that starch, not animals, is the traditional diet of people.
Men and women following diets based on grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables have accomplished most of the great feats in history. The ancient conquerors of Europe and Asia, including the armies of Alexander the Great (356 – 323 BC) and Genghis Khan (1162 – 1227 AD) consumed starch-based diets. Caesar’s legions complained when they had too much meat in their diet and preferred to do their fighting on grains. Primarily six foods: barley, maize (corn), millet, potatoes, rice, and wheat, have fueled the caloric engines of human civilization.
The longest living populations on planet Earth today live on starch-based (low-animal food) diets. These include people from Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Ikaria, Greece; and the Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California, who live in what are called the “Blue Zones.”
The most effective diets ever used to cure people of common day illnesses, like coronary heart disease, type-2 diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, arthritis, and obesity minimize animal foods and require people eat the bulk of their calories from starches, including grains, legumes, and potatoes (foods forbidden to Paleo eaters). Medical giants in starch-based diet-therapy, include Walter Kempner MD, the founder of the Rice Diet at Duke University; Nathan Pritikin; and Roy Swank, MD, founder of the dietary treatment of multiple sclerosis at Oregon Health & Science University.
Widespread Adoption of the Paleo Diet Would Soon Become an Ecological Disaster
The 2006 United Nations’ report Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options concludes: “Livestock have a substantial impact on the world’s water, land and biodiversity resources and contribute significantly to climate change. Animal agriculture produces 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 equivalents), compared with 13.5 percent from all forms of transportation combined.
This report (Livestock’s Long Shadow) from the World Health Organization is a conservative estimate of the destruction caused by the very foods that the Paleo Diet recommends in abundance. Calculations by the World Watch Institute find that over 51 percent of the global warming gases are the result of raising animals for people to eat. A recent report from U.S. Geological Survey estimates that it takes 4,000 to 18,000 gallons of water to produce the beef used to make one juicy hamburger. Every person that Paleo gurus convince to follow an animal food-based diet brings us one more step closer to the end of the world, as we know it.
Civilizations Could Not Have Thrived on the Paleo Diet
According to Dr. Cordain, “The Agriculture Revolution changed the world and allowed civilizations—cities, culture, technological and medical achievements, and scientific knowledge—to develop.” (p 43) In other words, if people had remained on a diet of mostly animal foods (assuming our ancestors actually did), we would still be living in the Stone Age. Fortunately, the Agriculture Revolution, with the efficient production of grains, legumes, and potatoes—the very foods forbidden by the Paleo Diet—allowed us to become civilized.
Dr. Cordain finishes his 2011 revision of his national best-selling bookThe Paleo Diet by warning, “Without them (starches, like wheat, rice, corn, and potatoes), the world could probably support one-tenth or less of our present population…” (p 215) Choose 10 close friends and family members. Which nine should die so that the Paleo people can have their uncivilized way? There is a better way and that is The Starch Solution.
Alicia Silverstone on milk and dairy |
By Robert Cohen Executive Director |
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| Tuesday, June 6BATGIRL is no longer CLUELESS.
Alicia Silverstone may be just 23 years old, but she has great wisdom, and she’s become the darling of the NOTMILK movement. At a recent promotion tour for her new movie-musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” Silverstone admitted that she has become a new person since giving up all dairy products two years ago. Silverstone sings in the new movie and recognizes what opera stars and Broadway performers have long known. Milk or cheese before a performance will create a nasal voice and cause stomach distress to the performer. Silverstone commented:
“It’s like pure mucous. It’s just creepy. No other species drinks milk from any other species. It’s completely mental.” Alicia was asked what happened to her body when she stopped consuming milk and dairy products.
“My skin became, like, completely glowy. I lost all this weight. I started pooping right.” Here’s something we would like to see. Alicia, how about posing for carrot juice-mustache ad to grace the NOTMILK site? More and more young fans are beginning to follow your lead. The most recent issue of the dairy industry magazine Hoard’s Dairyman (May 25, 2000) contains an editorial complaining about the growing popularity of vegetarian diets among high school and college students. Hoard’s writes: “Rare is the family gathering that doesn’t include at least one teen who will pass on the beef or pork, if not the dairy products and chicken as well.” Silverstone has become an advocate for both animal and people rights. By abusing animals, we abuse our own bodies. The actress said: “They take…the cows that are deemed unfit for human consumption, and they’re all ground up and fed back to cows and chickens and turkeys and pigs.” Alicia, we applaud you. You are a role model who has forsaken millions in endorsements to promote good health by your ethical and compassionate message. |
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Marketing Milk and Disease-USA The Dairy Industry is really big business – with sales of over $11 billion for milk and $16 billion for cheese annually in the USA alone – so you might expect hard line marketing from them – but would you expect them to aggressively sell their products if they were known to be harmful to people – especially to women and children?The Dairy Management Inc.™, whose purpose is to build demand for dairy products on behalf of America’s 80,000-plus dairy producers, has just released the Dairy Checkoff 2003 Unified Marketing Plan (UMP) with a budget of $165.7 million.1 The United Marketing Plan explains, “This ongoing program area (referring to the section Dairy Image/Confidence) aims to protect and enhance consumer confidence in dairy products and the dairy industry. A major component involves conducting and communicating the results of dairy nutrition research showing the healthfulness of dairy products, as well as issues and crisis management.”1 (Most likely, I fall under the heading of “issues and crisis management.”)
A significant portion of the money from the 2003 Unified Marketing Plan is specifically targeted to children ages 6 to 12 and their mothers. The goal is “to guide school-age children to become life-long consumers of dairy products, 2003 activities will target students, parents, educators and school foodservice professionals.”1 (Similar words and intentions have been attributed to the tobacco industry.) All this marketing is working, too: annual fluid milk consumption among kids 6 to 12 increased to 28 gallons per capita – the highest level in 10 years. Children under 18 drink 46% of the milk consumed in the USA.
Realize that when I say milk in this article, I’m also implicating all dairy products that are made from milk: non-fat milk, low-fat milk, buttermilk, cheeses, cottage cheese, yogurt, ice cream, whey, kefir, and butter. All of them share a similar nutritional profile (plus or minus the fat, protein, and sugar), and as a result, all of them contribute to a wide range of health problems.
Will the UMP Inform You of the Contamination? E. Coli, AIDS and Leukemia Viruses?
Last month I left you with some very disturbing facts about the contamination of milk with loads of bacteria and millions of white blood cells (pus cells) which are there to help fight off the infections found in cows and milk (see the April 2003 Newsletter found atwww.drmcdougall.com). Will the 2003 Unified Marketing Plan specify money to inform you of this upsetting information? You will never see an advertisement with a famous movie star proudly wearing a white mustache, properly labeled as containing 300,000 white blood cells and 25,000 bacteria.
Dairy products were the foods most often recalled by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from the period October 1, 1993 through September 30, 1998 because of contamination with infectious agents, mostly bacteria.2 They are commonly tainted with disease-causing bacteria, such as salmonella, staphylococci, listeria, deadly E. coli O1573 and Mycobacterium paratuberculosis4 (possibly one of the agents causing Crohn’s disease; a form of life-threatening chronic colitis) – as well as viruses known to cause lymphoma and leukemia-like diseases, and immune deficiency in cattle.
| AIDS and Leukemia Viruses Dairy cattle are infected with bovine immunodeficiency viruses (BIV) and bovine leukemia viruses (BLV), worldwide. (Bovine immunodeficiency viruses can also be properly referred to as bovine AIDS viruses.)
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Has it been shown that the bovine AIDS and/or leukemia viruses will infect you and cause disease? No. Nor has it been proved that they will not. Compared to the efforts to try to convince you of the bone-building benefits of milk, almost nothing has been spent to establish whether or not it is safe to feed your family dairy products teeming with bovine immunodeficiency and bovine leukemia viruses (and/or viral fragments). Some countries take this matter very seriously. For example, in many European countries, health officials have conducted programs to eradicate infected herds –Finland’s program has successfully eradicated BLV from its cattle.19
If you live in a region with a high incidence of herd infection with these viruses you can be pretty sure you will be consuming dairy products containing whole viruses or fragments of these viruses, since the milk from many dairy farms is mixed in large vats at the dairy factory before processing and packaging. Since the industry will not act responsibly in many countries, consumers are left with one choice – eliminate all dairy products from their diet. If eliminating dairy products would prevent even a small risk of human disease, it would be well worthwhile, especially since, as you learned in the April 2003 McDougall Newsletter, they are completely unnecessary for excellent health.
Will the UMP Market the Pain and Suffering Caused Children?
The Dairy Management Inc.™ has specifically targeted children in their campaign.1 This will raise no public concern, because most people consider cow’s milk the healthiest of all food choices, especially when it comes to children. Over 25% of children are overweight in Western countries and cow’s milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter, and sour cream, with all their fat and calories, contribute greatly to this deadly epidemic. Many of these overweight children are now developing type-2 diabetes. However, the most common variety of diabetes found in children is still type-1 or insulin dependent diabetes (IDDM).
Type-1 Diabetes
The evidence incriminating cow’s milk consumption in the cause of type-1 diabetes is sufficient to cause the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue these warnings, “Early exposure of infants to cow’s milk protein may be an important factor in the initiation of the beta cell (insulin-producing cells of the pancreas) destructive process in some individuals.”20 “The avoidance of cow’s milk protein for the first several months of life may reduce the later development of IDDM or delay its onset in susceptible people.”20
Exposure to cow’s milk protein early in life, when the intestinal tract is immature, sometimes results in the milk protein entering the blood stream where antibodies to this foreign substance, cow’s milk, are made by the immune system. Unfortunately, these same antibodies also attack the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. By glassful of milk after spoonful of ice cream, over a period of about 5 to 7 years, the child destroys his or her own pancreas – and is left with a lifelong, life-threatening, handicap: diabetes. The pancreas is forever destroyed and the child will have to take insulin shots daily. Complications, such as blindness, kidney failure, and heart disease will be a real threat during his or her shortened lifespan. (See my July 2002 McDougall Newsletter for a discussion of type-1 diabetes).
Constipation
Not as life-threatening as diabetes, but for some as mentally and physically distressing, is chronic constipation. As a doctor who has cared for hundreds of children, I can tell you they suffer with pain, bleeding, hemorrhoids, and embarrassment. The causal effects of cow’s milk were clearly demonstrated in a study of 65 severely constipated children published in the New England Journal of Medicine.21 These boys and girls complained of only one bowel movement every 3 to 15 days and many didn’t even respond to strong laxatives (lactulose and mineral oil). Forty-four of the 65 (68%) found relief of their constipation when taken off the cow’s milk. Evidence of inflammation of the bowel was found on biopsy, and anal fissures and pain were commonly associated with the constipation – elimination of the cow’s milk solved these problems. When cow’s milk was reintroduced into their diet 8 to 12 months later, all of the children developed constipation within 5 to 10 days. For constipation alone cow’s milk should be banned from the School Milk Programs, worldwide.
Rhinitis and Otitis Media
The multitude of snotty-nosed kids frequently visiting the pediatrician’s office for ear infections is much more obvious than the constipated crowd, and these problems less devastating than type-1 diabetes, but these complaints also can be due to consuming the foreign proteins intended for calves.22-25 In addition, these same children are likely to suffer from gastroesophageal reflux, asthma and/or eczema from their unnatural habit of drinking cow’s milk.
Diseases of Foreign Protein
Many conditions can be traced back to reactions to cow’s milk. Milk contains more than 25 different proteins that can induce adverse reactions in humans.26 Our immune system perceives these foreign proteins as alien invaders, like a virus or bacteria, and launches an attack in response, as in the case of type-1 diabetes discussed above and many other allergic and autoimmune diseases.
| DISEASES CAUSED BY, OR LINKED TO, DAIRY PROTEINS | ||||
| General: | Loss of appetite, growth retardation. | |||
| Upper Gastrointestinal: | Canker sores (aphthous stomatitis), irritation of tongue, lips and mouth, tonsil enlargement, vomiting, gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), Sandifer’s syndrome, peptic ulcer disease, colic, stomach cramps, abdominal distention, intestinal obstruction, type-1 diabetes. | |||
| Lower Gastrointestinal: | Bloody stools, colitis, malabsorption, diarrhea, painful defecation, fecal soiling, infantile colic, chronic constipation, infantile food protein-induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES), Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis. | |||
| Respiratory: | Nasal stuffiness, runny nose, otitis media (inner ear trouble), sinusitis, wheezing, asthma, and pulmonary infiltrates. | |||
| Bone and joint: | Rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Behçet’s disease, (possibly psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis). | |||
| Skin: | Rashes, atopic dermatitis, eczema, seborrhea, hives (urticaria) | |||
| Nervous System (Behavioral): | Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, autism, schizophrenia, irritability, restlessness, hyperactivity, headache, lethargy, fatigue, “allergic-tension fatigue syndrome,” muscle pain, mental depression, enuresis (bed-wetting). | |||
| Blood: | Abnormal blood clotting, iron deficiency anemia, low serum proteins, thrombocytopenia, and eosinophilia. | |||
| Other: | Nephrotic syndrome, glomerulonephritis, anaphylactic shock and death, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS or crib or cot death), injury to the arteries causing arteritis, and eventually, atherosclerosis. | |||
| References are available through the National Library of Medicine,www.nlm.nih.gov. Search “cow’s milk” and any of the diseases listed above.All dairy products contain milk proteins, including skim milk, yogurt, cheese, and butter, and many butter substitutes. Milk proteins are listed in packaged food products with a variety of names, such as milk solids, skim milk powder, casein, caseinates, whey, and albumin. Milk is also often put into packaged foods and not declared on the label – this is illegal and punishable by FDA action. | ||||
Even with all of this disease in children the American School Food Service Association and the dairy industry have developed a School Milk Pilot Test to demonstrate that kids will drink more milk in school if certain product enhancements are made.27 The result was milk sales increased by an average of 18 percent and consumption increased by 35 percent when schools provided flavored milks and other package enhancements.28
The UMP Will Try to Deceive You about the Fattening Nature of Dairy Foods
“Independent research confirming dairy’s role in weight reduction is mounting,” said Dr. Greg Miller, senior vice president of nutrition and scientific affairs for the Dairy Checkoff.29 “This helps to position dairy foods as part of the solution to America’s growing obesity epidemic.” And Miller added, “Informing the public about dairy’s role in the fight against obesity will help increase consumption of milk, cheese and yogurt, among other dairy products.”
Shouldn’t the idea of milk acting as an “antiobesity” food strike you as fundamentally contradictory? – After all, the biologic purpose of cow’s milk is to provide large amounts of energy and nutrients to grow the young animal from 60 to 600 pounds. So how does milk become a weight loss product in the 21st century? This idea began with the observation that underprivileged people, who have poor diets in general, are often obese, and also consume few dairy products.30 Some experiments that followed showed people and animals on calorie-restricted diets lost a small amount of extra weight when calcium or dairy foods were part of their diet. The “antiobesity” effects of dairy are difficult to explain, but may be due to calcium binding fat in the intestine, preventing its absorption.30
A thorough search of the literature for properly designed studies shows only one of 17 randomized studies found weight loss in people taking calcium pills, and of the nine randomized studies where fluid milk was added, two showed significant weight gain,and none showed significant loss.31 In one study funded by a grant from the International Dairy Foods Association, 204 healthy men and women were asked to increase their intake of skim or 1% milk by three cups a day for 12 weeks; those consuming the extra milk gained an average of 1.32 pounds (0.6 Kg).32 Can you imagine what their weight gain would have been if they had been asked to add whole milk, cheese, butter, and ice cream to their diet, instead of skim and low-fat 1% milk? The result of all this research was well summed up by one of the dairy industry’s frequent spokespersons at the Dairy Management Inc. sponsored Symposium: Dairy Product Components and Weight Regulation, held April 21, 2002 in New Orleans, with this statement, “In conclusion, the data available from randomized trials of dairy product or calcium supplementation provide little support for an effect in reducing body weight or fat mass.”31 Yet the consumer will hear from Dr. Miller and the rest of the industry, “eat more dairy products and you will lose weight.”
Dairy products are loaded with fats that are easily stored under your skin as “body fat.” The fats in the cold glass of milk, the little bite of cheese, and that small bowl of ice cream will move from your lips to your hips effortlessly. In fact, it moves with so little effort that the chemical structure of the fat isn’t even changed. Cow’s milk contains a unique kind of fat with double bonds located at the C-15 and C-17 position on the fat’s carbon chain. Examination of a person’s fatty (adipose) tissues following a biopsy will show the amount of this kind of fat present, which will be in direct proportion to the amount of dairy products the person consumes.33
All that fat the dairy industry asks us to eat is associated with higher risks of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and breast, prostate, uterine and colon cancer. Yet, as a marketing scheme, the dairy industry has teamed up with the National Medical Association to write articles about “the role of dairy in helping reduce the risk of heart disease, hypertension, and other serious health issues.”34 The National Medical Association promotes the collective interests of physicians and patients of African descent. Please explain to me how this association came about when the vast majority of people of African descent (80% to 90%) cannot drink milk because of lactose intolerance; causing them diarrhea, stomach cramps and gas.35
Not only is this dairy fat unattractively worn and a health hazard, but it is also a source of large quantities of environmental chemicals, like dioxins and DDT, that affect your health and the health of a mother’s offspring during pregnancy and nursing.36 One reason a young girl needs to start thinking about a healthier diet early is because the accumulation of these chemicals in her own body fat occurs over her entire lifetime.
The UMP Will Try to Confuse You about Bone Health and Animal Protein
Osteoporosis is caused by several factors; however, the most important one is diet – especially the amount of animal protein and acid in the foods we eat.37-39 The high acid foods are meat, poultry, fish, seafood, and hard cheeses – parmesan cheese is the most acidic of all foods commonly consumed.40 Once consumed, this food-derived acid must be neutralized in the body. Fruits and vegetables can do this neutralizing (these foods are alkaline in nature). However, because the diet of the average Westerner is so deficient in fruits and vegetables and so high in acid foods, the primary neutralizer of dietary acid becomes their bones – the bones dissolve to release alkaline materials.
Worldwide, the highest rates of hip fractures are among populations that consume the most animal food (including dairy products) – like people from the USA, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, etc.41,42 The lowest rates are among people who eat little or no dairy foods (these people are on lower calcium diets) – like people from rural Asia and rural Africa.41,42 The basic experiments published in the 1980s clearly show protein causes bone loss, and calcium offers little or no protection.43
Even the foremost scientists hired by the dairy industry know protein is harmful to the bones.44 In my April 2003 Newsletter I explained there was only one properly designed study testing the effects of fluid milk on the bone health of postmenopausal women – and the results were: those who received the extra milk for a year lost more bone than those who didn’t drink the milk.44 The authors, funded by the National Dairy Council®, explained in their paper, “The protein content of the milk supplement may have a negative effect on calcium balance, possibly through an increase in kidney losses of calcium or through a direct effect on bone resorption.” Trying to explain why those receiving the milk were in worse calcium balance, they said, “…this may have been due to the average 30 percent increase in protein intake during milk supplementation.”
Unfortunately, all this damning information does not sit well with the powerful dairy industry, so they have started the “3-A-Day of Dairy” program to battle the calcium crisis in America by promoting milk, cheese and yogurt for stronger bones – and they have been busy doing their own research to prove protein is good for the bones.45-48
Regrettably for them, their designing means were just revealed in the May 2003 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.49 The article in this journal exposed the way they made the results show protein is good for the bones. To devise research that appears to contradict hundreds of articles published over the past 35 years, you only have to provide sufficient alkaline material in the diet of the people being studied to neutralize the acid from the animal foods. This was accomplished by studying populations that have diets high in neutralizing fruits and vegetables; the other approach employed was to add a strong alkali source to the experiment, such as an antacid pill (wafer), calcium citrate (like Citracal).
Once the acid from the food is neutralized, then any bone building factors that might be present in meat and dairy can exert their effects. High protein foods, and especially dairy foods, raise the levels of a powerful growth-stimulating hormone in the body, called insulin-like growth factor-1 or IGF-1. Stimulation of bone growth by this hormone is now being offered as the reason dairy products build strong bones. It has long been necessary for them to find a more scientifically supportable explanation, because the bulk of the research shows the calcium in dairy foods has little or no benefit for bone health.50-52
The UMP Will Not Promote the Fact that IGF–1 is a Powerful Cancer Promoter
Consumption of animal products increases the levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 in your body. However, modern dairy technology has made dairy products an even more potent source of this growth stimulant. Since 1985, U.S. dairy farmers have been allowed to inject cows with recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone that increases milk production. RbGH treatment produces an increase in IGF-1 in cow’s milk.53,54 IGF-1 is not destroyed by pasteurization.53 The overall effect is that milk seems to raise IGF-1 levels in people more than any other component of our diet.55
The direct evidence of the effects of cow’s milk on IGF-1 levels in people has been provided by the dairy industry’s own efforts. Two recent studies, one on adolescent girls and the other on postmenopausal women, showed increasing milk consumption actually raises plasma levels of IGF-1 in the person’s body by an average of 10%.56,57 Their take on this is, “this is a beneficial effect” because IGF-1 stimulates bone growth. But, the actual lasting consequences should deliver the final deathblow to dairy products:IGF-1 promotes the growth of cancer. This growth promoter has been strongly linked to the development of cancer of the breast, prostate, lung, and colon.58 Excess IGF-1 stimulates cell proliferation and inhibits cell death – two activities you definitely don’t want when cancer cells are involved.58
There is more to cancer promotion by dairy foods than IGF-1. Most dairy products are high in saturated fat – and fat is the number one suspect when it comes to the cause of most common cancers in Western societies (for example, breast, prostate, colon, kidney, pancreas). Recent studies have linked the sugar (lactose) and fat in milk with ovarian cancer,59,60 and the calcium in milk lowers concentrations of a specific form of vitamin D that protects against prostate cancer, raising men’s overall risk.61,62 (See my February 2003 Newsletter for more information on diet and prostate cancer.) Hormones (estrogens) are also involved in cancers of reproductive organs, like breast and uterine cancer. There are several reasons dairy products raise a woman’s hormone levels – causing a variety of hormone-dependent problems from early onset of menstruation (menarche) to PMS and uterine fibroids – but one is unique to cow’s milk. Cows are milked even while they are pregnant. As a result of the pregnancy, cows secrete high levels of estrogen into their milk.63
Will the UMP Advertise that Dairy Is Simply Liquid Meat?
Red meat has become a “dirty word” when it comes to health. At the opposite end of the spectrum of opinions on food is cow’s milk – one of the world’s most trusted foods. Do you remember the “Basic Four Food Groups?” Dairy was usually placed first in this chart which was hung in every schoolroom (and by no coincidence the dairy industry also provided the chart). If you compare closely the nutritional make up of meat and dairy you will see why I call dairy products “liquid meats.”64
| THE MACRONUTRIENTS IN DAIRY MAKE IT “LIQUID MEAT” | |||||
|
Ground Chuck |
Cheddar Cheese |
Yogurt |
Whole Milk |
||
| % of calories from fat |
68% | 73% | 49% | 50% | |
| % of calories from protein | 32% | 25% | 22% | 21% | |
| % of calories from carbohydrates | 0% | 2% | 29% | 29% | |
| Fiber (grams) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Cholesterol mg per 100 cal | 22 | 27 | 21 | 22 | |
| Vitamin C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
Dairy products are deficient in iron and beef is deficient in calcium; both contain too little dietary fiber, essential fat (linoleic acid), and vitamin C and B3 (niacin) to meet human nutritional requirements.64 Heavy consumption of either of these food groups – loaded with fat and cholesterol – will result in the diseases common to affluent societies, such as obesity, heart disease, strokes, type-2 diabetes and cancer, to name just a few serious problems.65
If a patient bargained with me, “I’ll give up only one of the first two food groups – meat or milk – in hopes of getting well,” my recommendation for almost all common health problems in Western society would be, “You’re likely to get the most benefits if you give up the dairy products.”
References:
By going to the National Library of Medicine at www.nlm.nih.gov you can view the abstracts of most of these studies, and many times secure the original paper.
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The Way To Eat 