Other Health Hazards
Dairy consumption has many health hazards besides hormonal issues and cancer. This page on other diseases includes these key facts:
- Dairy consumption causes skin problems.
- The dairy consumption contributes to heart disease.
- Early exposure to cow’s milk proteins has been linked to type 1 diabetes.
- High consumption of dairy causes osteoporosis.
- Dairy is a leading cause of Parkinson’s.
Much research indicates cow dairy consumption is linked to Parkinson’s, cataracts, fractures, juvenile diabetes, low IQ, heart disease, and digestive problems. Why is dairy such a disaster for health and why aren’t we talking about it?
Acne – Putting Milk on the Spot
Cow’s milk can increase our hormone levels, which may then lead to acne. This could be why some bodybuilders, who take whey supplements, get acne.
Allergies
Food allergies cause 10 per cent of eczema and five per cent of asthma cases. The most common food triggers for eczema are cow’s milk and eggs. Cow’s milk allergy affects two per cent of infants under the age of one. However, a hypersensitive reaction to milk proteins can seriously affect the amount of iron in infants and young children. The proteins can induce hidden gastrointestinal bleeding that may lead to iron deficiency anemia, which may affect 40 per cent of otherwise healthy-looking infants.
Arthritis
Cow’s milk products make symptoms worse for some, while a low-fat vegan and gluten-free diet has been found to help others. Sulforaphanes (found in in broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage) have anti-inflammatory properties that may help protect against cartilage damage in osteoarthritis. A low fat-fat, vegan diet can be a powerful and positive, drug-free way of limiting the painful symptoms caused by this disease.
Crohn’s Disease
Crohn’s is linked to dairy foods via the MAP bacterium that causes a disease in cattle. MAP infection is widespread among cattle and is found in commercial milk. Infection may occur from inhaling MAP in fine water spray from rivers contaminated with infected cow manure. This could explain the clusters of Crohn’s that occur around cities with rivers such as Cardiff in Wales and Winnipeg in Minnesota, US. Professor John Hermon-Taylor at St George’s Hospital Medical School in London has found MAP in patients with Crohn’s disease from the UK, Ireland, US, Germany, and United Arab Emirates. Avoiding dairy may not ensure avoiding MAP exposure – although if there were fewer cattle there would be less MAP in the environment.
Heart Disease
The World Health Organization links heart disease to poor diets high in saturated fats, salt, and refined carbohydrates and low in fruit and vegetables. Replacing unhealthy saturated fat with healthier polyunsaturated fat may be more effective in lowering the risk of heart disease than reducing the total amount of fat in the diet. Soya protein, nuts, plant sterols and soluble fibers (found in oats and some fruit, vegetables, and pulses) can all help lower cholesterol, which is a risk factor for heart disease.
Cow Insulin Causes Immune Response and Type 1 Diabetes
Early exposure to cow’s milk proteins has been linked to type 1 diabetes. The dairy cow's insulin protein penetrates the intestine walls and goes into the blood stream. As a foreign protein cow insulin trigger an autoimmune reaction whereby our own immune cells attack these foreign dairy proteins, inadvertently destroying our insulin-producing pancreatic cells, thus leading to type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes occurs to babies born to women drinking dairy. Their babies get the cow's insulin secreted in the mother's breast milk.
The risk for individuals of developing type 1 diabetes varies to a country's consumption of dairy products. Japan has one of the lowest incidence rates of type 1 diabetes in the world. Their rate are now rising with the increase consumption of milk.
Type 2 diabetes is occurring in younger and younger adults at the level of a global epidemic, driven by the increasing burden of obesity. If the trend continues, by 2035 the NHS could be spending nearly a fifth of its entire budget on diabetes alone. Caused by obesity, poor diet, and lack of exercise – this disease is preventable and reversible. One obvious solution is to cut down on meat and dairy and increase fiber-rich fruit, vegetables, whole grains, pulses, nuts, and seeds. Vegan diets offer huge benefits for diabetes management, including weight loss and improving blood lipid profile and glycemic control. Indeed, low-fat vegan diets have been shown to reverse type 2 diabetes.
The Cause of Insulin Resistance
Insulin is the key that allows sugar in our blood enter cells. When insulin attaches to the insulin receptor, it activates enzymes which activates glucose transport for glucose to enter the cell. So, insulin is the key that unlocks the door into our muscle cells. In type 1 diabetes the insulin is missing so the blood sugar levels rise.
If there's enough insulin and it does not work then the lock is gummed up. The cells become resistant to the effect of insulin. Fat in the bloodstream can build up inside the cells, creating toxic fatty breakdown products and free radicals that can block the insulin signaling pathway process.
This mechanism by which fat induces insulin resistance can now be seen by MRI techniques. That's how we found out that elevation of fat levels in the blood causes insulin resistance by inhibition of glucose transport into the muscles. And this can happen within three hours.
Insulin encourages fat cells to store fat and prevents the release of fat from these cells. Therefore, high levels of insulin, known as hyperinsulinism, would be expected to promote obesity.
In addition to being a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, hyperinsulinism due to insulin resistance may increase blood pressure and contribute to hypertension.
Doing the opposite, lower the fat level in the blood and the insulin resistance comes down. Diabetes is a disease of fat toxicity.
This is a clear demonstration that the sugar tolerance of individuals can be impaired by administering a low-carb high-fat diet. There the insulin doesn't work very well.
Dairy Causes Insulin Resistance
Dairy is what’s called an insulin secretagogue. Meaning, that dairy prompts the pancreas to secrete insulin, more than expected based on the glycemic index of the food being consumed. A study of 13 people with Type 2 diabetes found that their insulin response after consuming dairy products was five-fold greater than expected based on the food’s carbohydrate content.
Many high protein and low-carb proponents believe carbohydrates are bad when it comes to weight loss and health. Most calories from a low-carb diet come from animal protein and fats. Refined carbs are bad, but not whole plants carbs. The low-carb diet has a flaw for it never solves the insulin problem. Most low-carb dieters feel tired and have urges for sweets. The maintenance of the diet is based upon limited amount of carbs that the body can utilize.
The theory with the low-carb diet regarding insulin is backwards. Animal protein causes as much insulin release as pure sugar. Multiple studies show dairy consumption can lead to increased insulin resistance: One study of 272 middle-aged women without diabetes showed a significant relationship between dairy intake and increased insulin resistance.
Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center studied dairy’s impact on blood sugar regulation in people with metabolic syndrome, by separating study participants into three groups: limited dairy, low-fat dairy, or full-fat dairy. After 12 weeks, participants in the two dairy groups were insulin-sensitive.
Another often cited study looked at 8-year-old boys who ate 53 grams of protein every day as either meat or milk. After a week, fasting insulin concentrations in the milk group doubled, causing insulin resistance to increase as well. The meat eaters, on the other hand, saw no increase in insulin or insulin resistance.
Dairy contains carbs in the form of lactose. Research shows that consuming dairy consistently triggers disproportionately high surges of insulin, given its carbohydrate load by a factor of 3-6 times. In contrast, when researchers gave subjects pure lactose, their insulin response matched its glycemic index. Thus something in dairy causes it to kick insulin response into overdrive.
Lactose Intolerance
In 1836, after returning from the Beagle, Charles Darwin wrote: “I have had a bad spell. Vomiting every day for eleven days, and some days after every meal.” For over 40 years, Darwin suffered from long bouts of vomiting, stomach cramps, headaches, severe tiredness, skin problems and depression. Researchers now suggest that he suffered from lactose intolerance. His case is a good example of how easily lactose intolerance can be missed. The ability to digest lactose (the sugar in milk) evolved because of a genetic mutation among some people in central Europe around 7,500 years ago. Descendants of these people can drink cow’s milk today without suffering the symptoms of lactose intolerance. Being lactose intolerant is the natural, normal state for most adults in the world.
Allergy or Intolerance
Lactose intolerance should not be confused with cow’s milk allergy. They are entirely different. Cow’s milk allergy is where the immune system reacts to proteins found in the milk whereas lactose intolerance is when the body cannot digest lactose, the sugar in milk.
Bone Health
The dairy industry markets its products as a good supply of calcium, required for preventing osteoporosis. The implication is that osteoporosis is a disease of calcium deficiency and if we but consume enough calcium mostly through dairy products our bones will stay strong. While this may be effective marketing, it’s not based on scientific fact. Osteoporosis is not a disease of calcium deficiency.
Countries that consume the most calcium through dairy suffer more osteoporosis than countries that do not. Recent studies have shown that the more dairy a woman consumes the higher her risk of hip fracture.
Osteoporosis is not a calcium deficiency. First year medical students are taught in physiology class about Wolff’s Law of Bones. It states that the more you use a bone and stress it against gravity, the stronger it becomes. Lifting objects, walking up hills with a load on your shoulder, carrying any weights stimulates the osteoblast cells in our bones to lay down new bone structure. Just like muscle, the more you use your bones, the stronger they become.
In a study published in the British Medical Journal, it was suggested that it is time we revised our calcium recommendations for young people and changed our assumptions about the role of calcium, milk and other dairy products play in the bone health of children and adolescents. Physical (especially weight-bearing) exercise is the most critical factor for maintaining healthy bones, followed by improving the diet and lifestyle.