More on the dangers of milk and milk products:
Milk - To Drink or Not to Drink?
June 14, 1999
Milk to drink or not to drink? This question has been debated with a passion for the past decade. I am not going to tell you not to drink milk; instead I want to share some secrets held from the general public so you can make an educated decision.
First of all, milk is not the best source of calcium for our bodies. Lactase/lactose blocks a good portion of the calcium and our individual bio-mechanic functions limit absorption even more. Broccoli is a much better, bio-available source of calcium. In fact, I suggest that you read up on botanical sources of calcium so that you can incorporate them into your diet.
Secondly, not everyone can digest dairy products. O blood types do ok, B blood types do the best, and A plus AB bloods do not do well at all. In addition to blood type, certain ethnic backgrounds do better than others with the consumption of milk/dairy in relation to weight gain. English and Scandinavian do well but German doesn’t. Even if the milk is fat free, the German biomechanics convert it to fat and stash the new fat cells under the chin, jawline, upper arm, and inner thigh.
Last of all, (and primary reason for this weeks tip) is that commercial grade milk is that commercial grade milk as not as “pure” and “healthy” as the mega dairy industry leads us to believe. Milk from the grocery store is NOT the same as on the farm. I grew up in a large dairy community and taste alone tells you that there is a difference. And those who travel will discover that the milk in Europe is different than in America. What’ s the major difference? Hormones!
Here’s what commercial grade milk, since late 1993, contains:
 Pituitary hormones (PRL,GH,TSH,FSH,LH ACT H oxytocin)
 Steroid hormones (Estradiol, Estriol, Progesterone, Testosterone, 17- Ketosteroids, Corticosterone, Vitamin)
 Hypothalamic hormones (TRH, LHRH, Somatostatin, PRL-releasing factor, GnRH, GRH)
 Thyroid and Parathyroid hormones (T3, T4, rT3, Calcitonin, Parathormone, PTH peptide)
 Gastrointestinal peptides (Vaso-active intestinal peptide, Bombesin, Cholecystokinin, Gastrin, Gastrin inhibitory peptide, Pancreatic peptide, Y peptide, Substance P and Neurotensin).
 Growth Factors (IGF’s..I and II), IGF binding proteins, Nerve growth factor, Epidermal growth factor and TGF alpha TGF beta, Growth < Inhibitors MDGI and MAF, and Platelet derived growth factor.
 Others . . .PGE, PGF2, alpha, cAMP, cGMP. Delta sleep inducing
 Peptide Transferrin, Lactoerrin, Casomorphin and Erythropoietin
*Kind of makes you think twice whether or not milk “does a body good” as the milk mustache campaign states!
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in late 1993, gave permission to Monsanto Corporation to market rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) a genetically engineered hormone for injection into dairy cows to increase production of milk. This is a substance finally being linked to major breast, colon and prostate problems, and no other country in the world will allow within its borders. (Monsanto has sought approval in Australia, New Zealand, the European Union and Canada.)
The FDA based their “safe” opinion of rBGH partially off an unpublished Monsanto study of rats fed rBGH in high doses for 90 days. They concluded that, “No oral activity was found when rBGH was administered to rats at exaggerated doses, yet a recent Canadian government report indicates that the findings of Monsanto’s study were misreported by the FDA. The Canadian report says that 20% to 30% of the rats fed rBGH in high doses developed primary antibody responses indicating that this hormone was absorbed into the rats’ blood. Furthermore, cysts reportedly developed on the thyroids of the male rats and some increased infiltration of the prostate gland occurred. If these kinds of reactions are turning up after only 90 days of use on rodents, what do you think is happening to people who have been drinking rBGH produced milk for the last 6 years? No wonder a large number of us are having thyroid problems and terrible perimenopause and menopause symptoms.
What’s really scary is that tens of thousands of US dairy cows are injected with rBGH each week, and virtually the entire American population is exposed to milk from rBGH treated cows when they buy milk, cream, cheese, yogurt, frozen yogurt, ice cream, iced milk and baked goods.
And just why has rBGH become so important to the American dairy industry anyway? $ $ $. There’s certainly no health-related need for it. The farms don’t need it, the cows don’t need it, and human beings are dying from it. It’s grade name is POSILAC, and in cows, it has been associated with increases in cystic ovaries, disorders of the uterus, digestive problems, enlarged hocks, and lesions of the knee, not to mention mastitis (pus clusters found in the tits of the cows). This, of course, increases the cow’s need for additional antibiotics. Which just compounds the problem that antibiotics are becoming ineffective for a lot of our diseases (due to overconsumption).
The last think you want to do is put antibiotics into your body unnecessarily. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) now tells us that antibiotic resistance in this country is at an all time high and is now a “major public health crisis.” When is man going to learn that when he tries to mess with Mother Nature for economic gain, the end result always has and always will be suffering and disease? And what is our great need to produce more milk in the first place when we already have a dairy surplus of over a quarter million tons of milk each year and the government uses a billion of our annual tax dollars to sop it up? Are we talking gross waste here, or what?
For those of you that don’t know, POSILAC increases milk production by releasing a chemical called IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor #1), which McGill University and the Harvard School of Public Health have recently found is a strong predictor of prostate cancer risk. Published in Science and funded, in part, by the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Initiative, these findings have shown a four-fold increased risk of developing prostate cancer among men who have high levels of IGF-1.
Although there have been no long term studies of rBGH's effects on humans, elevated IGF-1 is now being linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, acromegaly, hypertension, diabetes, and gynecomastia (growth of breasts in men). Even the congressional General Accounting Office has been warning us about drinking too much milk lately. The latest studies and statistics from the National Cancer Program’s SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) says that cancer is on the rise and estimates that there were over 131,000 deaths caused by breast, colon and prostate cancer in 1998 alone.
The bottom line is that the American public needs to wake up and realize that things aren’t always what they seem, and just because a government agency or a mega corporation tells you something, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s so. A good example of this is the case of where the FDA stated that pasteurizing milk would effectively kill the Mycobacterium paratuberculosis that’s found in cow’s milk. Well, it’s not true, and the British medical journal, CANCET, recently revealed a direct link between this bacteria and Crohn’s disease in humans. Cows get a disease called Johne’s (pronounced: yo-nees) and pass on this bacteria to humans in milk and dairy products. We’re talking about another nightmare here, and a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease usually results after many years of irritable bowel syndrome, a condition shared by more than 6 million Americans, most of them women. According to a USDA study, conducted by scientist Judy Stabel, Ph.D., “The bacteria were not totally inactivated until after 15 minutes of incubation (pasteurization) at 72 degrees centigrade.” This isn’t very reassuring when you consider that normal pasteurization at this temperature calls for a 15-second treatment, not 15 minutes! |
