The Milk Advisory Board is at it again.
Wait, a group of people with a vested interest in a product has developed an ad campaign to sell more of the product in question? Granted it does seem a little strange the smell of cookies does not inspire an overwhelming desire in me to drink milk.
At least least they dont use half truthes and fear mongering techniques to sell milk like oh I dont know PETA’s milk=prostate cancer campaign. Granted high intake of milk/dairy does increase your odds of getting prostate cancer they completely forget to mention any positive effects of milk intake (including reducing other forms of cancer) nor do they mention that the associated risk of high levels of milk are fairly low.
At least least they dont use half truthes and fear mongering techniques to sell milk like oh I dont know PETA’s milk=prostate cancer campaign. Granted high intake of milk/dairy does increase your odds of getting prostate cancer they completely forget to mention any positive effects of milk intake (including reducing other forms of cancer) nor do they mention that the associated risk of high levels of milk are fairly low.
How can you say on one hand that PETA linking milk to prostate cancer (if they do, I’m not familiar with any of their campaigns) is fear mongering or a half truth and in the next sentence concede exactly that? I would assume that they don’t mention the positive effects of milk because there is nothing that is milk-specific that produces these other benefits that cannot be found elsewhere in other foods (in addition to their obvious agenda). Why ingest something that is 80% good and 20% bad, when you can get 100% good and 0% bad from other sources? You could wrap a rotting roadkill squirell in a pita and market it as nutritious on the grounds that it contains protein, carbohydrates and fat, but that doesn’t make it a necessary or healthy addition to your diet. I’m not saying milk is unhealthy, just that it isn’t necessary to “do a body good”.
I’m not saying milk is unhealthy, just that it isn’t necessary to “do a body good”.
Can’t you say that about any food though? Certainly there are multiple sources of every vitamin, mineral, fat, protein, carb etc we need. So no food, probably not even water as you can get water from water mellon, is absolutely necessary “To do a body good”.
~Matt
What is necessary is macro- and micronutrients, vitamins, minerals and water. So yes, there is no single food item that is absolutely necessary. But to call a product that is linked to specific health problems “healthy” because it contains basic macronutrients that are available elsewhere is pure marketing and borders on irresponsible. I’m not saying they are knowingly deceiving the public by concealing incriminating evidence (although that is certainly a possibility) but rather pushing the idea that you can’t have healthy bones, grow big and tall, have strong teeth and muscles without their specific product. That is simply not true, but it’s widely accepted and relatively unchallenged.
I had a lengthy debate with my running partner the other night about whether or not you could legitimately market cotton candy as nutritious simply because it contains carbohydrates. It was an interesting discussion. I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.
Today’s topic during our daily run: how long could a human survive while eating only green jello, no food or liquids otherwise. We put the over/under at two weeks.
Peta (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) had an ad campaign in New York after then Mayor Giuliani was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was the mayor with a milk mustache and below the picture it said “got prostate cancer?”
I concede the truth that there have been links to “high” milk consumption and prostate cancer. Peta’s portrayal of the issue was much more one sided and not accurate. Milk=cancer. Low and moderate milk consumption hasnt been corellated to prostate cancer, and the correlation while significant was small. Just because something is statistically significant doesnt always mean it is physiologically significant. Add that on top of the old correlation doesnt equal causation argument. Compared to the many other benifical effects of milk consumption I think the pros outweigh the cons, especially if you are in the low-moderate consumption of milk category. If Peta was trying to present information to allow the general public to make an informed choice ok, but they are not. In this area they are pushing an agenda plain and simple.
“You could wrap a rotting roadkill squirell in a pita and market it as nutritious on the grounds that it contains protein, carbohydrates and fat, but that doesn’t make it a necessary or healthy addition to your diet.”
Tasty! I say we dip it in milk that has been sitting in the Texas sun in august for three days to make sure we get some calcium. In your example the Negatives i.e. getting sick with diarehha and puking all day outweigh the positives CHO, fats and proteins. On top of the fact that since your body will purge all of these nutrients before you can absorb any of them makes your claim of it being nutritious dubious at best. Unless of course your marketing it as a supplement to avoid having to provide proof of your claims to the FDA.
If milk is so bad why do all mammals produce it and feed it to their young?
PETA continually stumbles over themselves for exactly the reasons you described. They are masters at self-defeating initiatives. I also agree with the correlation/causation argument, which is why I am undecided on the issue of whether it’s actually detrimental to my health (I switched from milk to soymilk, but still buy organic cheese, ice cream, etc.)
If milk is so bad why do all mammals produce it and feed it to their young?
If milk is so good why do all mammals stop consuming it long before adulthood and rarely from another mammal?
(Unless, of course, it’s fed to them by other humans.)
“If milk is so good why do all mammals stop consuming it long before adulthood and rarely from another mammal?”
Yeah, I knew that was coming, but it still doesnt help your argument, which is that milk is bad (I am mostly assuming your playing the devil’s advocate here). Just because almost all mammals (humans being the exception and then not even all of them) stop consuming it before adulthood doesnt make it bad. Unless of course your lactose intolerant. No species I am aware of knowingly feeds its young something harmful (again humans in extreme cases being the exception).
I had to add this after watching the link in Sphere’s post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-_nvPjYpvg
I want to run with you, it sounds like some good conversations.
Green jello, Eeewwww
Everyone is trying to poison us
.
but rather pushing the idea that you can’t have healthy bones, grow big and tall, have strong teeth and muscles without their specific product.
Odd, I guess it’s a matter of perception. Like any advertising the products “Strong points” are excentuated and it’s bad points are never or rarely mentioned. Gatorade will turn you into a superstar, Pepsi a rock star etc etc. None of the milk adds I’ve seen claim that you CAN’T have healthy bones, grow big etc without milk, just that “milk it does a body good”. Obviously they aren’t going to say “Milk just one of many products you can get calcium, vitamin D etc etc from”, that would not be a very succesful add campaign.
Again there is no “perfect food” and I’d be on your side if I though that the adds actually said “Milk is the only way”, but I guess I don’t see that. Pretty much every “good food” has some drawbacks and thus pretty much any positive advertisement for that food could be construed as misleading.
~Matt
**If milk is so good why do all mammals stop consuming it long before adulthood and rarely from another mammal? **
Simple really. It’s hard on the mother to keep producing it. It has nothing to do with how healthy it is for the offspring and everything to do with A) making the offspring independent so that the mother can have more and B) it being a huge drain on the mother’s resources so they won’t continue to produce it once it is not absolutely essential.
I’ve heard this reasoning many time and it simply doesn’t hold up.
Why don’t they just cut to the chase and cover the ads in pus-paint?
*Simple really. It’s hard on the mother to keep producing it. It has nothing to do with how healthy it is for the offspring and everything to do with A) making the offspring independent so that the mother can have more and B) it being a huge drain on the mother’s resources so they won’t continue to produce it once it is not absolutely essential. *
Well put.
And just for the record, the odds ratio for prostate cancer in men with high intake of milk is 1.7 fold (95% confidence interval ~1.3 to 2.1). The incidence of prostate cancer ranges from 1 to 2.5 in 1000 depending on ethnicity. So with a high milk diet, a white male would have an absolute risk increase of .15% at most, and perhaps little increase at all.
Simple really. It’s hard on the mother to keep producing it. It has nothing to do with how healthy it is for the offspring and everything to do with A) making the offspring independent so that the mother can have more and B) it being a huge drain on the mother’s resources so they won’t continue to produce it once it is not absolutely essential.
Excellent points. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that milk is bad for a child or any nursing-age mammal. Nature devised this exchange for obvious reasons, so I tend to believe it’s the best possible nutrition a newborn could receive. But that is a different issue entirely from an adult consuming the milk from another species that has been produced using growth hormones and antibiotics. Apples and oranges.
I really hate to get into the milk battle, but here we go.
I think a problem I have seen with milk consumption in the literature is this:
Proteins in milk are highly antigenic- they elicit a strong immune response. Pieces of proteins that we eat can end up in our bloodstream without being fully digested. The problem with consuming milk of another species is that the proteins may be different enough from our own to elicit an immune response, but similar enough for the antibodies produced to react with “self”. For this reason some researchers have come to believe that milk consumption may be linked to some auto-immune diseases (including notably type I diabetes).
Is drinking milk from your own species bad for you? Of course not. The argument here is about drinking another species milk.
Should you stop drinking milk for this reason? That’s totally up to you. I don’t think any of the links have been specifically “proven” and most auto-immune diseases are rare.
For me, doesn’t matter. I can’t drink milk anyway. I’ve always hated the stuff, even as a toddler. Because of that I have totally lost the ability to digest it. So I choose not to drink it.
Jodi
(There are also studies on casein protein and progression of cancers, but that is another story)
**Excellent points. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that milk is bad for a child or any nursing-age mammal. Nature devised this exchange for obvious reasons, so I tend to believe it’s the best possible nutrition a newborn could receive. But that is a different issue entirely from an adult consuming the milk from another species that has been produced using growth hormones and antibiotics. Apples and oranges. **
I was just answering your question. You can not use the fact that offspring are weaned off of milk as an indicator that it is not a good source of nutrition. The weaning happens to allow for the mother to feed the next baby so that the species can continue to propogate.
**Proteins in milk are highly antigenic- they elicit a strong immune response. Pieces of proteins that we eat can end up in our bloodstream without being fully digested. The problem with consuming milk of another species is that the proteins may be different enough from our own to elicit an immune response, but similar enough for the antibodies produced to react with “self”. For this reason some researchers have come to believe that milk consumption may be linked to some auto-immune diseases (including notably type I diabetes). **
JHC will probably have a much more informed opinion, but wouldn’t this cause an allergic reaction instead of an auto immune disease?
Do you have any links to this research showing a link between milk consumption and type I diabetes?
JHC will probably have a much more informed opinion, but wouldn’t this cause an allergic reaction instead of an auto immune disease?
It can cause a variety of effects. Milk is one of the “big 8” of food allergies, and can cause what we all think of as a typical allergic reaction. It can also cause a different kind of allergic reaction in some people characterized by mucousy and/or bloody diarrhea and coughing up blood. Clearly in these kids, milk avoidance is required. Note that neither of these is the same thing as lactose intolerance.
There is also some thought that immune reactions against certain milk proteins may lead to the development of antibodoes that crossreact against the pancreatic beta cells that make insulin. In contrast, human breast milk seems to be protective in desensitizing this reaction. As far as I know, the evidence for this isn’t rock solid, and clinically we don’t seem to think about it much. For sure, we try and encourage exclusive breast-feeding for the first 6 months since this is associated with a variety of good outcomes, but I never hear diabetes mentioned as one of them. Also, we discourage giving infants highly allergenic foods like fish, shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts before the age of one in the thought that this will help prevent the development of potentially serious food allergies. (There are studies ongoing now that are challenging this notion however.) But we definitely dont encourage withholding cow’s milk at any time.
I’m on the pediatric Allergy/Immunology service right now - I can ask the head of the divison about this during rounds next week if people are interested.
It’s been a raging debate in the literature. A lot of evidence for and against. Whenever I have a scientific query, I go here first. Great search engine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
To your other question:
This is a different process than what would be considered “allergy”. Alleries are due to production of a different type of antibody, IgE.
Most other studies linking autoimmune diseases to antigenic stimulus have concerned viral or bacterial infection, the main enemies of our immune system, and the production of IgG antibodies. In addition to the milk debate, there is also more convincing evidence linking viral infection to type I diabetes. The body does its normal job in recognizing non-self, produces antibodies to help the immune system recognize the offender, and T-cells kill the offender. This doesn’t elicit an allergic response. The problem is just when these antibodies also can recognize self and lead to destruction of normal tissue. I believe that people who study the link between milk and autoimmune diseases believe that it is the same arm of the immune system as I just described.
I’m just bringing up research that has been done, not necessarily subscribing to one viewpoint or the other. My reasons for not drinking milk are totally separate from the debate going on here.
And I haven’t taken Immunology for 5 years, so cut me a little slack if anything said here is innacurate 
Jodi