Do you think milk is safe?

jhendricks123

I drank milk my whole life up until a few years ago when I met my wife. She was vegan at the time (for diet purposes) and so I started drinking soy/rice/almond milk instead. Turns out I like it more. I don't see anything wrong with organic dairy products, though I agree with the folks who explain that we're only meant to drink milk as newborns, and that it's meant to nourish help us grow quickly.

I believe organic milk is more likely to help you put on weight than cause cancer. And while I can't say one way or the other (I'm not a scientist/biologist and I don't have any studies to link to), milk from cows treated by hormones or subjected to unnatural processing is probably not the best for you. You are what you eat, and if you wouldn't pop pills containing the same hormones they're feeding the cows, you probably shouldn't consume the cow or anything that comes out of it.

I realize it's here-say, but I've heard about how more girls are getting their figures earlier, starting their cycles sooner etc - and while it could be BS, it could also be related to the hormones given to pretty much every animal we eat.

Rocbola

Correlation is not proof, this is true, but the Campbell's study isn't meaningless. When we couple his data with the data from the many epidemiological studies involving diet, it gives us a pretty darn good idea of what foods are conducive to good health.

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I was like many of you. I was very quick to defend what i had known as truth. It is hard to admit that we may have been wrong about something.

Matt_Wild

Correlation is not proof, this is true, but the Campbell's study isn't meaningless. When we couple his data with the data from the many epidemiological studies involving diet, it gives us a pretty darn good idea of what foods are conducive to good health.

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I was like many of you. I was very quick to defend what i had known as truth. It is hard to admit that we may have been wrong about something.

To use one study is foolish, simple as that really.

rileamoyer

I like milk

Nysie5

I feel milk is fine to drink. People use scare tactics to push their food issues. You're not evil or horrible for drinking milk or eating milk products. Enjoy your cheese.

here here

SideSteel

Correlation is not proof, this is true, but the Campbell's study isn't meaningless. When we couple his data with the data from the many epidemiological studies involving diet, it gives us a pretty darn good idea of what foods are conducive to good health.

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I was like many of you. I was very quick to defend what i had known as truth. It is hard to admit that we may have been wrong about something.

To use one study is foolish, simple as that really.

Especially that one.

Matt_Wild

Correlation is not proof, this is true, but the Campbell's study isn't meaningless. When we couple his data with the data from the many epidemiological studies involving diet, it gives us a pretty darn good idea of what foods are conducive to good health.

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I was like many of you. I was very quick to defend what i had known as truth. It is hard to admit that we may have been wrong about something.

To use one study is foolish, simple as that really.

Especially that one.

Indeed. The UK government used a 1948 study regarding fat and used it to base decisions on fat for the last 30-40 years and only now has started to see fat doesn't make you fat...

...goes to show even governments get it wrong.

Sarauk2sf

Correlation is not proof, this is true, but the Campbell's study isn't meaningless. When we couple his data with the data from the many epidemiological studies involving diet, it gives us a pretty darn good idea of what foods are conducive to good health.

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I was like many of you. I was very quick to defend what i had known as truth. It is hard to admit that we may have been wrong about something.

That is a VERY extreme case of correlation and not causation.

Here is a study (I have posted it before) that looks strength training with dairy consumption v strength training without in women and actually shows that those who to consume dairy have an improvement to bone density as well as LBM:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23075559

It is one study, yes and I would not call that conclusive, but it does show a possible correlation.

ironanimal

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I'm willing to bet that these same countries are well-developed countries like the States and the UK; where your life expectancy is higher and thus, you have more time to develop degenerative conditions.

Edit for fail spellingz.

Rocbola

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I'm willing to bet that these same countries are well-developed countries like the States and the UK; where your life expectancy is higher and thus, you have more time to develop degenerative conditions.

Edit for fail spellingz.

Yes, the US and UK, but also Norway, Sweden and other European countries. The US life expectancy rates are actually pretty low. (probably because of our high meat/dairy diets) Some of the highest life expectancy rates in the world are in Asia, Japan for example, and they don't have as high of rates of hip fractures or osteoporosis.

ironanimal

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I'm willing to bet that these same countries are well-developed countries like the States and the UK; where your life expectancy is higher and thus, you have more time to develop degenerative conditions.

Edit for fail spellingz.

Yes, the US and UK, but also Norway, Sweden and other European countries. The US life expectancy rates are actually pretty low. (probably because of our high meat/dairy diets) Some of the highest life expectancy rates in the world are in Asia, Japan for example, and they don't have as high of rates of hip fractures or osteoporosis.

Another link between all of those places being the population is primarily Caucasian - well, I don't know the stats for the US. I think it's far more likely to be a genetic disposition towards it than the consumption of milk. Maybe you're right. I don't know. The benefits of it far outweigh the possible side-effects in my mind.

etoiles_argentees

For example: The nations with the highest rate of osteoporosis have the highest rate of dairy consumption. This is not PROOF that dairy does causes bone weakening, but it would be foolish to overlook this information, as well as the many other independent studies, because of your pre-existing beliefs regarding dairy.

I'm willing to bet that these same countries are well-developed countries like the States and the UK; where your life expectancy is higher and thus, you have more time to develop degenerative conditions.

Edit for fail spellingz.

Yes, the US and UK, but also Norway, Sweden and other European countries. The US life expectancy rates are actually pretty low. (probably because of our high meat/dairy diets) Some of the highest life expectancy rates in the world are in Asia, Japan for example, and they don't have as high of rates of hip fractures or osteoporosis.

It has nothing to do with milk, I like milk and will continue to drink it.

Discussion

These data demonstrate that there are significant differences in BMD of the lumbar spine and femoral neck among late premenopausal and early perimenopausal African-American, Caucasian, Chinese, and Japanese women. In unadjusted analyses, lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD are highest in African-American women, next highest in Caucasian women, and lowest in Chinese and Japanese women. Ethnic patterns of BMD change, however, when the effects of selected anthropometric and lifestyle variables (notably body weight) on BMD are considered. When analyses are restricted to women who weigh less than 70 kg, lumbar spine BMD is similar in African-American, Chinese, and Japanese women and lowest in Caucasians, a finding that differs from conventional dogma. At the femoral neck, adjusted BMD is highest in African-American women and similar in the other three groups. Differences in lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD between Caucasian and Chinese women are eliminated when values are corrected for the scale artifact inherent in areal BMD measurements. In fact, when BMD values are corrected for the scale artifact of DXA and then adjusted for differences in body weight and other covariates, Chinese women actually have higher BMD than Caucasians. This finding also differs from prior reports.

Several prospective observational studies have reported that BMD is a major predictor of fracture risk in postmenopausal women (27). In general, for every SD that BMD is reduced, the risk of fragility fractures increases by 50–100% (27). In our subjects, unadjusted lumbar spine and femoral neck BMDs were 1–2 SD values higher in African-American women than in Caucasian, Japanese, or Chinese women. These differences in BMD are sufficiently large to account for the well known lower fracture risk of African-American women although other factors, such as their higher body mass index, may also contribute. Most of these differences are due to differences in body weight rather than to the effects of ethnicity per se.

Previous studies have reported that BMD at multiple skeletal sites is higher in pre-, peri-, and postmenopausal African-American women than in Caucasian women (3, 4, 5, 19, 28, 29, 30). Most of these studies, however, did not account for possible effects of ethnic differences in bone size. Although African-American women are heavier than Caucasian women, their lumbar spine and femoral neck bone areas are actually smaller. This difference may be due, in part, to magnification effects related to differences in subject thickness. Thus, it is not surprising that correcting for differences in bone size fails to eliminate BMD differences between African-American and Caucasian women. Previous studies have also reported that differences in anthropometric and lifestyle variables, particularly body weight or body mass index, account for part of the difference in BMD between African-American and Caucasian women (5, 19, 28). For example, Ettinger et al. (19) found that adjustment for a series of anthropometric, lifestyle, and biochemical variables reduced the difference in BMD between black and white women by 34%. Cauley et al. (30) found that BMD remained higher in postmenopausal black women even after adjusting for age, obesity, serum estrogen levels, physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and medication use. Our data agree that adjustment for anthropometric and lifestyle factors, particularly body weight, reduces the magnitude of the difference in BMD between African-Americans and Caucasians. Moreover, our data demonstrate that when weight is made comparable by restriction, spine BMD is similar in African-American and Chinese and Japanese women, although caution is needed when interpreting analyses based on subsets of subjects. This finding contrasts with existing data that suggest that lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD are higher in African-American than in Asian women (31, 32). Differences in BMD between African-American women and other ethnic groups that remain after correction for anthropometric and lifestyle factors may reflect true genetic differences in BMD.

Several studies have compared BMD of adult Chinese or Japanese women with women of other ethnic groups. If BMD is not corrected for bone size or body size, BMD at multiple skeletal sites is clearly higher in Caucasian women than in Chinese or Japanese women (8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 31, 33). Our data confirm these findings. Nonetheless, although some reports suggest that fracture rates in Asian women from urban areas are approaching those reported in Caucasians from the United States (34, 35), most studies report that hip fracture rates are lower in Asians than in Caucasians (6, 7), an observation that seems inconsistent with their lower BMD. To some extent, this paradox may be due to differences in hip geometry between Asian and Caucasian women (33), although no differences in hip axis length between Japanese and Caucasian were detected in the SWAN cohort (36). Ethnic differences in body mass could also contribute to differences in fracture rates, although the lower body mass index of Asian women should increase their risk of hip fracture compared with Caucasian women rather than decrease it. It is also possible that hip fracture rates are lower in Asians than in Caucasians because Asian women fall less frequently (37). A more plausible explanation for the apparent paradoxical relationship between BMD and fracture rates in Asian and Caucasian women is that BMD values have been misinterpreted. When corrections are made for body size, most authors report that total body, femoral neck, and posterior-anterior lumbar spine BMD (or bone mineral content) are similar in Caucasian and Asian women (8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 33). Our data confirm and extend these findings. When lumbar spine BMD values of the entire cohort were adjusted for covariates, BMD was similar in Chinese, Japanese, and Caucasian women. When similar adjustments were performed in women who weighed less than 70 kg, the portion of the cohort that included most of the Asian women, lumbar spine BMD was actually greater in Chinese and Japanese women than in Caucasian women. Moreover, because Chinese women have smaller bones than Caucasians, differences in lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD between Caucasian and Chinese women were eliminated when BMD was expressed as BMAD. When the spine and femoral neck BMAD values were also adjusted for differences in weight, Chinese women again had significantly higher values than Caucasians. Thus, Asians may have lower fracture rates than Caucasians simply because they have higher BMD when one adjusts for the effects of bone size and body weight.

The rank order of spine BMD among ethnic groups changed when the data were adjusted for covariates and changed further when the cohort was restricted to a weight range in which there was considerable overlap of the four ethnic groups. Whereas BMD of Caucasians ranked second at all skeletal sites in unadjusted analyses, Caucasians consistently had the lowest adjusted BMDs. Spine BMD was no longer higher in African-Americans than in Asians when values were adjusted within the weight-restricted subset of women. The changes in rank ordering of BMD when weight is considered in these ways highlight the importance of having a cohort of sufficient size to account for the complex effects of weight or other covariates on BMD in women of multiple ethnicities.

There are differences in BMD between ethnic groups that remain after adjustment for bone size and various anthropometric and lifestyle variables. There are many plausible factors that may contribute to these differences. African-Americans have lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations and equivalent or higher PTH levels than Caucasians (5, 19, 38, 39, 40, 41), although these differences do not appear to account for differences in BMD (5, 19, 38, 39, 40, 41). Two studies suggest that the skeletons of African-Americans are less sensitive to the resorptive effects of PTH (39, 40), a finding that may account for their lower rates of bone turnover (5, 42) and higher BMD. Finally, racial/ethnic variation in genes related either to the development of peak bone mass or to the timing or rate of adult bone loss is a plausible cause of racial/ethnic differences in bone mass. Few studies have examined this issue, however. The distribution of polymorphisms in the vitamin D receptor gene identified by the presence or absence of a BsmI restriction enzyme site is similar in African-American and Caucasian women as is the effect of specific vitamin D receptor genotypes on BMD (43). Further studies, particularly of genes that are clearly related to BMD or body size, are needed to determine the biological basis for the racial/ethnic variation in BMD that is not accounted for by variables in our analysis.

The mean femoral neck BMD of our Caucasian women is about 4% higher (0.826 g/cm2 vs. 0.796 g/cm2) than that of Caucasian women aged 40 to 49 who had similar measurements as part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) (44). This difference may be due to the fact that all SWAN participants were either premenopausal or early perimenopausal, whereas women of any menopausal status, including postmenopausal women, were included in NHANES III. By comparison with 20- to 29-yr-old Caucasian women surveyed in NHANES III (45), only 3 of 1076 Caucasian women, 2 of 235 Chinese women, 1 of 258 Japanese women, and 0 of 608 African-American women in our cohort would be classified as osteopenic, and no women would be classified as osteoporotic at the femoral neck using the nomenclature adopted by the World Health Organization (46).

Certain limitations of our study deserve mention. First, although our sample is community-based, it may not be representative of the entire U.S. population (22). Moreover, we have no data on Hispanic women or women of other minority groups. Second, our analysis does not include all factors that may affect BMD and may vary by ethnicity. For example, our only dietary variables are calcium and alcohol intake, and we have not included hormonal measures such as vitamin D, PTH, gonadal steroids, or IGF-I in these analyses. We feel that this approach is reasonable, however, because our goal was to determine whether ethnic differences in BMD truly exist among premenopausal and early perimenopausal women of various racial and ethnic groups and the extent to which lifestyle and anthropometric variables contribute to these differences.

In summary, we found significant differences in lumbar spine and femoral neck BMD in premenopausal and early perimenopausal women among women of various racial/ethnic groups. These data provide new insights into ethnic variation in BMD. Contrary to conventional wisdom, ethnicity per se is not associated with differences in lumbar spine BMD among African-American, Chinese, and Japanese women, and all three groups have higher BMDs than Caucasians of comparable weights. African-American ethnicity is associated with higher femoral neck BMD than Caucasians, Chinese, or Japanese, all of whom have similar femoral neck BMD. These findings provide a plausible biological basis for the known ethnic differences in fracture rates. Ethnic differences in BMD that persist after adjustment for bone size and other factors may be due to ethnic variation in genes related to BMD.

EvgeniZyntx

Re: osteoporosis.
Trying to correlate milk drinking to an increase in osteoporosis is ridiculous. I designed hip implants and then moved on to Pharma marketing in the field of alendronates. The mechanism for bone modeling - osteocytes/osteoblasts, calcitonin, etc is highly dependent on calcium and Vit D uptake and metabolism, ion flux stress in the bones. The reason northern countries see a higher prevalence of hip fractures is complex but very much studied. Low calcium consumption is a clear risk factor for osteoporosis.

Posting a pretend causality between moo-milk drinking and that condition is like posting wearing expensive winter coats causes bone weakening because there is a high correlation between the two.

l_clc

That's a bunch of nonsense. It doesn't cause cancer. However, I work in the agricultural realm, and I have to say that I don't agree with how they handle dairy cattle. To make the farm profitable, they have to milk hundreds of cows per day, sometimes more depending on the size of your workforce. The more animals you have in a confined area the more likely it is to cause disease. Add to this that no dairy operations have NEAR enough pasture, and the cows are standing in FILTH all day, so they load the cows up with antibiotics and they inject them with growth hormone to make them produce more milk.

I buy local organic milk from a dairy farm that I've actually been to, and it's great. So many fun things to learn about it. But like with so many things in this world excess leads to abuse.

The reason I buy organic milk is because it's a certification, I actually couldn't care less if they used hormones or not, it's not like I'M being injected with them =P

I generally don't comment on these arguments however, I felt a need to voice my opinion and experience about this quote.

I grew up on a dairy farm. My father and his father and even my grandfather's father had profitable farms. We didn't milk over 100 cows at a time. Our cows were NOT standing in filth all the time and grazed on wide-open, spacious pasture during the summer months (farm was over 500 acres) and in a free-run, wide open barn all winter. This post I quoted makes no sense to me, especially coming from someone who works in agriculture....most farms I know in my province are like this- with an over-abundance of land. Inspector's come to investigate the cleanliness of the operation and will shut one down if it doesn't meet standards. Also, many antibiotic's you speak of are not intended for animals meant to be consumed...again, working in agriculture, I'm disappointed you don't know this. Perhaps if you worked on an actual farm- you may know the difference, just saying...

Sorry, but I grew up on milk....as did generations before us. My grandfather and his father (and their wives) all lived to be over 95 years old. This is the only thing I agree with regarding the above quote- it doesn't cause cancer. It if filled with nutrients and if not consumed in an over-abundance....it is perfectly safe and healthy.

Lyadeia

That's a bunch of nonsense. It doesn't cause cancer. However, I work in the agricultural realm, and I have to say that I don't agree with how they handle dairy cattle. To make the farm profitable, they have to milk hundreds of cows per day, sometimes more depending on the size of your workforce. The more animals you have in a confined area the more likely it is to cause disease. Add to this that no dairy operations have NEAR enough pasture, and the cows are standing in FILTH all day, so they load the cows up with antibiotics and they inject them with growth hormone to make them produce more milk.

I buy local organic milk from a dairy farm that I've actually been to, and it's great. So many fun things to learn about it. But like with so many things in this world excess leads to abuse.

The reason I buy organic milk is because it's a certification, I actually couldn't care less if they used hormones or not, it's not like I'M being injected with them =P

I generally don't comment on these arguments however, I felt a need to voice my opinion and experience about this quote.

I grew up on a dairy farm. My father and his father and even my grandfather's father had profitable farms. We didn't milk over 100 cows at a time. Our cows were NOT standing in filth all the time and grazed on wide-open, spacious pasture during the summer months (farm was over 500 acres) and in a free-run, wide open barn all winter. This post I quoted makes no sense to me, especially coming from someone who works in agriculture....most farms I know in my province are like this- with an over-abundance of land. Inspector's come to investigate the cleanliness of the operation and will shut one down if it doesn't meet standards. Also, many antibiotic's you speak of are not intended for animals meant to be consumed...again, working in agriculture, I'm disappointed you don't know this. Perhaps if you worked on an actual farm- you may know the difference, just saying...

Sorry, but I grew up on milk....as did generations before us. My grandfather and his father (and their wives) all lived to be over 95 years old. This is the only thing I agree with regarding the above quote- it doesn't cause cancer. It if filled with nutrients and if not consumed in an over-abundance....it is perfectly safe and healthy.

Way to resurrect a 7 month old thread! :drinker:

For the record, cow's milk is awesome and so is cheese. :flowerforyou:

HollisGrant

I went to a church dinner last night and sat at a table where the discussion was cows milk and how damaging it is. How it possibly causes cancer and should not be consumed by humans. How it's injected with cancer causing hormones. I had never heard any of this. The thing is...I like milk. I'm not intolerant of it and it's a good source of calcium and vitamin D for me (especially in the rainy Pacific NW) But I don't exactly want cancer either. What are your thoughts? Do you think milk is safe? What about cheese? (gosh I love cheese!)

My late husband had prostate cancer for 13 years. I learned a lot about the disease and went to lectures at Georgetown Hospital in D.C. (Lombardi Cancer Center), Hershey Medical Center in Pennsylvania, read books, asked questions, and so on. Lombardi Cancer Center doctors told us that men who eat a diet without dairy and red meat have far lower rates of prostate cancer than the western diet. The same thing applies to other cancers. People who eat a diet with fish and vegetables are usually healthier (I'm not talking about stomach cancer which has higher rates where people eat beans and rice and veggies because they also eat a lot of spice). I think the issue here is fat and hormones that are in dairy and red meat. Cow milk is milk designed by nature for a baby animal. It has natural hormones in it. Try almond milk or other products and see what you think, or do without dairy in your coffee and tea.

pangy1958

O forgoodness sake. If we listened to everything that was unsafe to eat we would just be drinking water, Or NO thats probably not safe either. I used to work for the British Milk Marketing board, and here in England farmers were not allowed to sell their milk if the cows had any antibiotics, hormones anything like that. That milk was considered not fit for human consumption and had to be thrown away. All milk was tested at the source (the farm ) before loaded onto the tankers to the dairy, at the dairy the tanker of milk was taested again. Samples of milk from the farms were sent to our laboratories for testing to. Mind you thats in British Isles not sure how safe it is in other countries.

toutmonpossible

I usually only drink milk in my coffee and when I'm home I try to drink milk from cows that haven't been given rBGH. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/recombinant-bovine-growth-hormone

pangy1958

As for drinking raw milk, unless the milk herd has been accredited brucellosis free I wouldn't even touch it. But then you still have other germs that could be in it such as yeasts, e. coli, streps, and other bacteria, which can make you ill.

Sylvitryinghard

oh didnt heard about this before but might be right....with everything what we eat. I love soya milk.