Its just like me....

.....It does a body good.....maybe??

A lot of questions I get revolve around the consumption and effects of milk. I love milk and I love most milk based products. I believe that a heavy consumption of chocolate milk, almost a gallon on Saturdays, when I was a young lad led me to have never broken a bone....EVER..my entire life. Although I did get bouts of acne and was sick a bunch I still never wore a cast and was strong as an ox...or really tough puppy. I had good teeth, damn good teeth and for the most part still do.

But, still the debate still rages as to whether or not the consumption of milk as an adult is either good or bad. As our Governor once responded at a Body Building show being asked his opinion on milk, "milk is fo babiez."

I subscribe to the Paleo Newsletter and just wanted to share with you a question and answer I recently read. Enjoy!

Question:

Hello Dr. Cordain,

I am working on an article for Men's Journal about the negative impact of dairy products on some people. Basically, can you explain why milk is problematic? My understanding is that, similar to gluten, milk is potentially inflammatory, which is why it's such a common allergen. Can you expand on this?If someone is drinking milk now, and not feeling any negative effects, does that mean he doesn't have an issue with milk?What sort of changes have you observed in people who've given up dairy?Also, are all dairy products problematic, or is milk a particularly bad one?What do you recommend in place of milk to fill that nutritional gap?

Thanks so much for your help.

Thanks,
Ben

Detailed Answer!:

Hi Ben,

I really am not a world expert when it comes to health problems associated with milk, but I will copy Pedro Bastos, a colleague who is, and who has written a few pieces on this that may help to answer your questions:

Milk has numerous properties that may adversely affect health.

• Paradoxically, milk has a low glycemic response, but has an insulin response similar to eating a chocolate chip cookie or candy. In a recent study of young boys, they became insulin resistance after 7 days on a high milk diet compared to 7 days of a high meat diet.
  
  
• In humans, milk drinking elevates a hormone called IGF-1 which increases growth in children, resulting in an increased adult stature, but it also increases the risk for breast, colon and most particularly prostate cancer. How milk drinking increases IGF-1 is not completely known, but two mechanisms have been proposed: 1) bovine milk contains IGF-1 which crosses the human gut barrier, and 2) IGF-1 concentrations in human blood vary with insulin -- because milk increases the insulin response so dramatically, then this response in turn may increase IGF-1.
  
  
• In numerous epidemiological studies, milk drinking has been associated with an increased risk for numerous autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes. Young children are particularly at risk for type 1 diabetes if bovine milk exposure occurs before the age of 1 year. In animal models of multiple sclerosis, a particular protein found in milk (butyrophilin) when injected into rats causes the animal equivalent of MS.
  
  
• In a series of epidemiological studies from the Harvard School of Public Health, milk drinking has shown to dramatically increase the risk for acne. Once again the mechanism has not been completely worked out but may once again involve milks highly insulinotropic effect and/or various hormones found in milk that bypass the gut barrier and enter circulation.
  
  
• In many epidemiological studies, milk drinking increases the risk for atherosclerosis and fatal myocardial infarctions independent of its saturated fat content. Again the mechanisms are unclear, but it likely involves chronic low level inflammation, or perhaps endocrine substances found in bovine milk that adversely interact with mechanisms known to underlie cardiovascular disease.
  
  
• Milk contains a hormone called betacellulin which binds a human gut receptor called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R). In many human cancers, there is massive over expression of this receptor which may be linked to chronic consumption of betacellulin in bovine milk.
  
  
• There are many more health problems associated with milk drinking, but these are the ones that come immediately to mind. I'm sure Pedro can add many more.

Are all dairy products problematic, or is milk a particularly bad one?

I believe that all dairy products are problematic. Cheeses do not cause the high insulin response as does milk, yogurt and other fermented dairy products, but is one of the most acidic of all foods. Paradoxically, despite its high calcium content, its net acidic load promotes calcium loss from the bones. Betacellulin is also found in cheese, but many of the other hormones found in milk do not survive the cheese making process.

If someone is drinking milk now, and not feeling any negative effects, does that mean he doesn't have an issue with milk?

We cannot feel whether or not we are insulin resistant or if bovine hormones are entering our bloodstream, or if our arteries are becoming clogged with the atherosclerotic process, but we can notice improvements in acne and symptoms of allergy (wheezing, sneezing, rashes etc.), or autoimmune disease.

What sort of changes have you observed in people who've given up dairy?

I am not a clinician, and generally the anecdotal responses I am privy to involve people not just giving up dairy only, but rather adopting a Paleo diet in which all dairy is eliminated, along with all grains, processed foods, salt, legumes and potatoes. If you go to my website and look at the success stories section, you can read about these people.

What do you recommend in place of milk to fill that nutritional gap?

I don't view it as a nutritional gap, but rather a liability which causes our health to suffer in the long run. We have run nutritional comparisons of the following food groups (meats, seafood's, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, nuts & seeds, milk) and published our results in the highest impact nutritional journal in the world, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. We found that for these 7 food groups, milk ranked third from last for the 14 most commonly lacking nutrients in the US diet. Hence, the commonly held notion that milk is a highly nutritious food is simply untrue.

Except for calcium, milk is a lightweight for many of the vitamins and minerals needed for optimal human health. Healthy bones result from positive calcium balance. Calcium balance is like a bank account and results from how much calcium we put into our bodies minus how much we lose. The Dairy Council focuses their ads upon the input side of the calcium equation -- more, more, more. However, the calcium that we ultimately lose in our urine is just as important. If we lose more calcium in our urine than we take in, we will never be in calcium balance, no matter how much milk we drink.

The most important factor determining urinary calcium loss is acid base balance. A net acid yielding diet promotes calcium loss in the urine, whereas a net base yielding diet prevents urinary calcium loss. Foods which are base yielding are fruits and vegetables. Studies have shown that by consuming about 25-30 % of our daily energy as fruits and veggies, we can maintain calcium balance at low calcium intakes without milk consumption. Humans have existed on this planet for 2.5 million years, and only in the past 10,000 have we ever consumed milk or dairy products. Like all other mammals on the planet, we did quite well without milk (once we were weaned) for the rest of our adult lives. Have you ever thought about how an elephant can grow such large, health and strong bones without drinking the milk of another species?

I hope this helps.

Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor

SPAM!!!

Ok more like newsletters. Here is the latest one and I pretty much knew a lot of this but just wanted to pass the info onwards because I know most of you their think I am crazy, paranoid, nuts, bonkers, and evil.....or some kind of combination of those. Enjoy and Feast on Knowledge!!

3 So-Called "Healthy" Foods that You Should STOP Eating (if you want a lean healthy body)

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition SpecialistAuthor of the best-seller: The Truth About Six Pack Abs

I was reading a statistic in a nutrition book recently, and this is going to shock you...
Now before I tell you the statistic, let's keep an important fact in mind... according to well renowned nutrition author Michael Pollan, and his amazing book called In Defense of Food, humankind has historically consumed approximately 80,000 different species of edible plants, animals, and fungi, and approximately 3,000 of those have been widespread foods of the human diet.
Now get ready for a shocking and appalling statistic...
Currently, the average adult in the US consumes approximately 67% of their total caloric intake from only 3 foods -- CORN, SOY, AND WHEAT (and their derivatives).
What would be considered a reasonably healthy amount of corn, soy, and wheat in the human diet? Based on 10's of thousands of years of human history, and what the natural diet of our ancestors was (indicating what our digestive systems are still programmed to process), this would probably be in the range of about 1% to 5% MAX of our total calories from corn, soy, and wheat.
Considering that modern humans are eating 67% of their total calories from corn, soy, wheat... you can see why we have massive problems in our health, and our weight!
It's not a surprise that we have so many intolerances and allergies, specifically to soy and wheat (and gluten intolerance)... the human digestive system was simply never meant to consume these substances in such MASSIVE quantities.
Keep in mind that these massively high levels of corn, soy, and wheat in our modern human diet is a relatively new phenomenon that originated from the economics of the multi-billion dollar corn, soy, and wheat industries. It really HAS been all about the money.
By "derivatives" of corn, soy, and wheat, this means the food additives such as:
high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
corn oil
soybean oil (hydrogenated or plain refined)
soy protein
refined wheat flour
hundreds of other food additives such as maltodextrin, corn or wheat starch, soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, etc, etc
This doesn't surprise me... consider how much soda or other sweetened drinks (with loads of HFCS) that the average person drinks daily... this is a LOT of calories from just 1 sole corn derivative. Even marinades, salad dressings, ketchup, breads, and 100's of other foods contain loads of HFCS!
Also think about how many processed foods we have that are either fried in soybean or corn oil... and even if the foods are not fried in these oils, these oils are additives to almost every processed food... chips, candies, cakes, salad dressings, tomato sauces, burrito wraps, corn chips, breaded chicken, etc, etc. This is a LOT of calories from these 2 other corn and soy derivatives... both of them EXTREMELY UNHEALTHY!
On top of that, think about how much breads, cereals, pastas, muffins, and other highly processed wheat products that most people consume each day. Again, this is LOADS of unhealthy, blood-sugar spiking, nutrient-poor calories, that more than half of the population has some degree of intolerance to anyway.
It gets even worse!
Not only are we eating 67% of our total calories from corn, soy, and wheat... but because of the economics involved (specifically with cheap corn and soy) we are also feeding most of our farm animals corn and soy now too... again amplifying the amount of corn and soy that ends up in our bodies.
Probably the 2 worst examples of this blatant mismanagement of our food supply is how our factory farmed chickens and cows are fed.
Cows are fed mostly corn in factory feedlot farms, even though their digestive systems are only meant to eat grass and other forage. This makes the cows sick (hmm... E-coli anyone?), alters the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of the fats to unhealthy levels, and also diminishes the healthy CLA fats that would occur naturally in grass-fed beef. All of these problems go away if our cows are fed what they were made to eat naturally - grass!
Our chickens are also fed a diet of mostly corn and soy and crowded in tight pens in horrendous conditions... when the fact is that a chicken was meant to roam around the outdoors eating a mixture of greens, insects, worms, seeds, etc. When chickens are kept inside in tight quarters and fed only grains, it leads to an unhealthy meat for you to eat, and less healthy eggs compared to free-roaming chickens allowed to eat an outdoors diet.
Our food supply has gotten so screwed up that we're even feeding our salmon and other farmed fish corn and soy...again because of the economics involved. How ludicrous is this, considering that fish are meant to eat a diverse diet of smaller fish, worms, bugs, etc. Again this makes farm raised fish unhealthy in terms of nutrition compared to the wild counterparts. If you want to see something even scarier about farm raised fish, watch this quick video about the toxic fish you might be buying.
So even when you're eating chicken, beef, and fish, you're still essentially getting even MORE corn and soy into your body...considering that the cows, chickens, and farmed fish ate mostly soy and corn.
So it's actually WORSE than just 67% isn't it!
Why is it so unhealthy to consume 2/3rds of our calories from corn, soy, and wheat?
Well, this section could encompass an entire book, so to keep this short, I'll just throw out a few random reasons...
Skews the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in our diet to as high as 30:1, when a ratio of 1:1 to 2:1 is considered healthy.
Problems with gluten intolerance (related to heavy wheat consumption)
Problems with weight gain, blood-sugar swings, and reduced insulin sensitivity (and progression of diabetes) due to excessive refined corn and wheat flours, as well as HFCS in our diet
Soy and corn are the most genetically modified crops (which also allows more pesticides and herbicides to be used, which are usually xenoestrogens)
Many of the pesticide and herbicide residues in these crops are xenoestrogens, which can increase "stubborn" belly fat
Soy products and derivatives contain a double-whammy of xenoestrogens as well as phyto-estrogens... again creating an environment in your body for fat storage, carcinogenic effects, and even "man boobs" in very severe cases
The feeding of corn and soy to animals reduces the health and nutritional benefits of those animal products
and the list could go on and on and on...
So how do you avoid all of this overwhelming amount of corn, soy, and wheat in our food supply, and finally take control of your weight and your health?
1. Don't purchase processed foods! It all starts with your grocery cart discipline... choose only 1-ingredient foods such as fruits, veggies, beans, eggs (free roaming), nuts, seeds, and meats from grass-fed or free roaming animals that are raised correctly. Only resort to junk foods or processed foods on a 1-day per week "cheat day" but ONLY when dining out... that way, the processed foods aren't in your house to tempt you.
2. Get most of your carbs from fruits and veggies instead of grains.
3. Avoid store bought salad dressings as they almost always contain soybean oil and HFCS (instead, try my homemade healthy salad dressing)
4. Make sure that your tomato sauces don't have HFCS and soybean oils... look for sauces made with olive oil instead. Remember to avoid unhealthy canola oils too!
5. Try veggie sticks with guacamole instead of corn chips
6. Try veggies sticks with hummus instead of pita chips or other bread
7. Reduce your cereal, bread, and pasta intake by having these foods only on "cheat days" and stick to more of the 1-ingredient foods I mentioned in #1 above. Try some of these healthy snacks as good alternatives (yes, I know that one of the 13 snacks on there has sprouted grain, which is fine on occasion).
I could go on with more examples, but I think that's good for now.
So with all of this said... Is my diet perfect? Well, no of course not! Nobody is perfect, and I can give in to temptation on occasion just like anybody else.
However, I'd estimate that my corn/soy/wheat consumption is only about 2-4% of my total caloric intake compared to 67% for the average person. The way that I achieve this is to simply not bring any corn, soy, or wheat products into my house, so I'm never tempted by it. Therefore, at least 6 days/week, I eat virtually no corn/soy/wheat, except for the occasional piece of sprouted grain toast a couple times a week (which is a better option than typical "whole grain" bread).
I do, however, give in and sometimes eat breads, pasta, and even corn chips, etc. when I'm dining out. I see these as my cheat meals and try to do this no more than once per week. I still completely eliminate sodas and deep fried foods though...they are just TOO evil!