______________________________________________________________________________ | File Name : DIABMILK.ASC | Online Date : 06/10/95 | | Contributed by : InterNet | Dir Category : BIOLOGY | | From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 | | A FREE Alternative Sciences BBS sponsored by Vanguard Sciences | | KeelyNet * PO BOX 870716 * Mesquite, Texas * USA * 75187 | | Voice/FAX : (214) 324-8741 InterNet - keelynet@ix.netcom.com | | WWW Mirror - http://www.eskimo.com/~billb | |----------------------------------------------------------------------------| The following file deals with milk as possibly causing diabetes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 220 33324 <1995May17.142018.17579@lafn.org> article Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative Path: ix.netcom.com!netcomsv!uu3news.netcom.com!netcomsv!uucp3.netcom.com! lafn.org!l afn.org!ao966 From: ao966@lafn.org (Mark Graffis) Subject: Re: Milk Sucks X-Nntp-Posting-Host: lafn.org Message-ID: <1995May17.142018.17579@lafn.org> Sender: news@lafn.org Reply-To: ao966@lafn.org (Mark Graffis) Organization: The Los Angeles Free-Net References: <003370B9.fc@pop.com> <3ojghi$c85@nexus.polaris.net> Date: Wed, 17 May 1995 14:20:18 GMT Lines: 108 This was put out by PCRM 2 years ago.. It has long been suspected that cow's milk proteins are a principle cause of diabetes in children, and a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine adds more support for this explanation. In comparisons of different countries, the prevalence of insulin dependent diabetes parallels the consumption of cow's milk. Children who are not exposed to cow's milk products early in their life have a dramatically lower risk of diabetes. In the new report, researchers from Canada and Finland, found evidence that implicated cow's milk in every one of the 142 diabetic children they studied. The culprit appears to be a cow's milk protein, called bovine serum albumin, which differs just enough from human proteins to cause the human body to react by producing antibodies. The antibodies later attack and destroy the insulin- producing beta cells of the pancreas. Every one of the 142 diabetic children had high levels of antibodies to the cow protein at the time the diabetes was diagnosed. The researchers found that the non-diabetic children may have such antibodies, but only at low levels. The form of diabetes which begins in childhood [insulin-dependent diabetes] is a leading cause of blindness, and contributes to medical problems including heart disease, kidney problems, and amputations due to poor circulation. The new report indicates that the combination of genetic predisposition and cow's milk exposure is the cause of the childhood form of diabetes. If the theory is correct, the antibodies can form in response to even small amounts of milk products. Diabetes becomes evident when 80% to 90% of the insulin-producing beta cells are destroyed. Why does this form of diabetes sometimes not manifest untill early adulthood? The beta cell sites which are attacked by the antibodies are not always present. They tend to arise after infections, which may be when the antibodies kill off some of the insulin-producing cells. Although there is evidence that a genetic predisposition may be neccessary for diabetes to develope, there is no way of determining which children are predisposed. Even identical twins, who have the same set of genes, often differ with respect to diabetes: one child may develope the disease, while while the other does not, appearently depending on their histories of milk exposure and the infections that expose the pancreatic cells to damage. The American Acadamy of Pediatrics now recommends that infants under a year of age not receive whole cow's milk. The Acadamy's main concern was not diabetes, but iron deficiency anemia, which is much more likely on a dairy-rich diet. First, cow's milk products are very low in iron, containing only about one- tenth of a milligram per eight-once serving. To get the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowence for iron, which is 15 mg per day for infants less than a year of age, an infant would have to drink more than 31 quarts of milk per day. The iron-deficiancy caused by milk is not simply due to milk's lack of iron and it's tendency to push iron-rich foods out of the child's diet. Milk actually causes the loss of blood from the intestinal tract, which, over time, can reduce the body's iron stores. Just how cows milk causes blood loss is not known, but researchers speculate that the culprit may be bovine albumin, eliciting an immune reaction which leads to blood loss. Pasteurization does not eliminate the problem. Researchers from the University of Iowa recently wrote to the `Journal of Pediatrics' "..in a large proportion of infants the feeding of cow milk causes a substantial increase of hemoglobin loss. Some infants are exquisitely sensitive to cow milk and can lose large quantities of blood. "Milk does contain calcium. But it is not unique in that respect. Kale, broccoli, and other green leafy vegetables contain calcium that is readily absorbed by the body. A recent report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that calcium absorbability was actually higher for kale than from milk, and concluded, "greens such as kale can be concidered to be at least as good as milk in terms of their calcium absorbability." Broccoli actually contains more calcium per calorie than does milk. Beans are rich in calcium, and fortified orange juice supplies substantial amounts as well. There is no nutritional need for cow's milk in human children. The new report adds further confirmation that U.S. government advise that all children should drink cow's milk should now be reversed: There is no reason to recommend cow's milk. From SCIENCE NEWS 3/12/94 Women who would like but have failed to conceive a child may want to review how big a role dairy products play in their diet, a new study suggest. A team of researchers in the United States and Finland now reports that where per capita milk consumption is highest, women tend to experience the sharpest age- related falloff in fertility. - With the exception of certain northern Europeon populations and their descendants, most adults lose the ability to easily digest lactose, a sugar in milk. Because lactose intolerance discourages high consumption of milk and other dairy goods rich in galactose - a sugar apparently toxic to human eggs - this trait may be beneficial, observe gynecologist Danial W. Cramer of Harvard Medical School and his coworkers. - Five years ago, Cramer linked galactose consumption with increased risk of ovarian cancer. To look for hints that this sugar might also affect fecundity, his team compared published data from 36 countries on on rates of fertility, per capita milk consumption, and hypolactasia - that adult inability to digest lactose. In the Feb. 1 `American Journal of Epidemiology', they now report a correlation between high rates of milk consumption and waning fertility, beginning in women just 20 to 24 years old. - The strength of that association - and the rate of fertiliy decline - grew with each successively older age group studied. In Thailand, for instance - where 98 percent of adults are hypolactasic - average fertility in women 35 to 39 is only 26% lower than peak rates [at age 25 to 29]. By contrast, in Australia and the United Kingdom, where hypolactasia affects only about 5% of adults, average fertility by 35 to 39 is fully 82% below peak rates. - Many factors -including marriage customs, divorce rates, contraception use, and individual wealth - affect fertility, the authors concede. However, notes Cramer, the new analysis does offer "demographic confirmation of what we have observed both experimentally, when you feed a mouse high galactose, and clinically, in women with galactosemia [an inability to metabolize galactose]." Women with this disorder who have high concentrations of the sugar in tissue are infertile, he observes. -- Mark Graffis 809-772-9025 ~That light at the end of the tunnel's a 232 Little LaGrange freight train, folks~ F'sted, VI 00840 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------