American Fitness Professionals & Associates

New evidence comes in against milk, but some old advocates stand by their position
By Susan O. Henry

Science changes. The earth used to be flat, and fat was once Group Seven of the Seven Basic Food Groups.

Scientists view new outcomes with skepticism, as they should. Are the researchers impartial, is the methodology flawed, do the findings have a professional or economic consequence for the researchers or their funders? Pure science is not pure: Yesterday’s truth may be contradicted by today’s new fact.

Has science changed its mind about milk? That’s the major debate of the day.

Milk has been called Nature’s Nearly Perfect Food, and there was consensus (though not unanimity) on its necessity for healthy bones and teeth. Recognizing a dramatic rise in the number of Americans with osteoporosis (loss of bone mass, causing bone to become honeycombed, shrunken, brittle, and easily broken), the National Academy of Science, National Institutes of Health, and the USDA collaborated to raise the recommended daily calcium intake from 1000 mg. to 1500 mg. for kids over 10, women, and everyone past 50. And in 1993, the USDA allowed a bone-health claim for milk, reports Dr. Robert Heaney of Creighton University, Omaha.

No one disputes the need for calcium, especially for bones that are growing up or growing old. The dispute is over milk as the purveyor.

Calcium + Protein = Osteoporosis?

The human body requires hefty intakes of calcium for young bones to grow, and for aging bones to remain intact. But according to numerous studies, milk is the worst-choice source of calcium.

Dairy products are rich in calcium, to be sure; but they are also rich in protein. Dr. Vijaya Venkat of the Health Awareness Centre, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, India points out that nutritionists the world over believe that the Western diet provides too much protein. “There is too much protein in bovine milk, protein we do not need at all.” The particular proteins in milk (and other animal sources) “produce acidic ash in the blood. Since our blood has to be slightly alkaline all the time, the body withdraws calcium from the bones to neutralize this acid. So excess protein will weaken the bones,” Dr. Venkat writes.

There are plenty of plant sources for calcium, researchers note. Citrus fruits, legumes, nuts, soy, and anything green. “Fruits and vegetables yield an alkaline ash, and don’t deplete calcium stores,” Alan Lamm reports. Citing research, he explains: “Meat, eggs, milk products, and fish are the most acid-forming foods. High protein diets lead to a gradual decrease in bone density.”

Lamm, summarizing a study embraced by all the anti-milk journalists, reports that osteoporosis and its resulting bone fractures are most common in countries where dairy consumption is highest: Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Scandinavian countries.

In an article in the August 28, 1997 News-Observer, Dr. Neal D. Barnard, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, writes: “The real causes of osteoporosis are the five factors that leach calcium from the bones: Animal protein, caffeine, sodium, tobacco, and sedentary lifestyle.”

Says Dr. Venkat, “(Osteoporosis) is a degenerative disease resulting from improper care of your body during younger and middle years.”

The Harvard Nurses Study

In recent writings, the research cited most often (by American writers, at least) is the Harvard Nurses Study, which investigated osteoporosis and bone loss in women. As Dr. Robert M. Kradjian of Seton Medical Center at Daly City, Calif., explains, from 1980 to 1992 the Harvard Nurses Study followed 77,761 women between ages 34 and 59 to determine the relationship between milk consumption and osteoporosis.

Dr. Kradjian and Dr. Bernard both report the bottom-line results of the study: “Those who drank three or more glasses of milk per day had no reduction in the risk of hip or arm fractures over the 12-year period, compared to women who drank little or no milk, even after adjustment for weight, menopausal status, smoking, and alcohol use.” Moreover, adds Dr. Kradjian, “Fracture rates were higher for those who consumed three or more servings, compared to those who did not drink milk.”

As far as some scientists are concerned, the findings of the Harvard Nurses Study are not necessarily conclusive. Some find the results less of a problem than the efficacy of the study itself — science is not pure, remember, and scientists scrutinize the methodology of other scientists’ studies.

A professor of medicine at a midwestern university, who asked not to be named because he would “not elevate the controversy by participating in a debate” (”Don’t put my name to it” indicates the volatility of the issue!), disregards the integrity of the Nurses Study. “The rules by which science operates are that experimental studies trump observation. The Nurses Health Study was observational.”

One researcher said, “The head of the unit responsible for the Nurses Study made his bias clear. He said he was opposed to all milk.” However, the critic did not specify whether the study leader was biased before the outset of the study, or as a result of it.

A staff person at the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) told us that, as of late January, they “haven’t finished analyzing the Nurses Study.” Though “some studies show that milk has a negative effect,” NOF hasn’t yet changed its stance. “The preponderance of evidence shows calcium has a positive effect on the skeleton. Most medical research conducted so far shows that calcium combats osteoporosis.” The Foundation has long been among the strongest advocates for dairy foods as bone builders.

Dr. Heaney says, “There is no longer any credible controversy about milk. In the past ten years more than 20 experimental studies of calcium have been published — clinically correct randomized controlled trials, some of them using milk as the calcium source. All have shown that high calcium intake has a clear benefit on bone and blood pressure.” Dr. Heaney is one of those to whom method is the key to the integrity of the research. His article on “Problems of Observational Studies of Nutrients” appears in the December, 1997 medical journal Bone.

The Matter With Milk

Research, some of it done 30 years back and some reported only weeks ago, documents a long list of milk negatives. The thesis: Milk does a body harm. And milk’s adversaries, whose numbers are growing, have a boxcar load of studies to support them.
Their claims:

Cow’s milk lacks essential fatty acids human infants need for neurological development. Babies drinking whole milk in their first two years develop allergies, colic, diabetes; milk causes internal bleeding in children, which contributes to anemia. Milk protein attacks the immune system. Cow’s milk contains “antibiotics, pesticides, chemicals, hormones, blood, white cells (pus), and bacteria from mastitis (udder infection)” which the USDA and FDA either do not test for, or which they allow to be present in unacceptably high levels. Various studies found “significant positive correlations” between milk intake and lung and ovarian cancers, leukemia, and Crohn’s disease.

And, possibly, lung and prostrate cancers, Dr. Kradjian notes, but with reservations: “the weight of evidence” suggests it’s the animal fat in milk which triggers the growth of cancer cells. This implies that meat is equally damaging. “At least half of human adults” are lactose intolerant, which offers proof, according to Dr. Kradjian, that “cow’s milk was never intended for human consumption.” Milk consumption does not protect women from osteoporosis; in fact, it may cause it. The body withdraws calcium from the bones to neutralize the proteins and lactic acids in milk.

Not all scientists agree with the integrity of particular individual studies, nor with their conclusions; but a significant number do. We have drawn from the following resources.

Robert M. Kradjian, M.D., a division chief at Seton Medical Centre, Daly City, Calif., www.afpafitness.com/MILKDOC.HTM

Dr. Vijaya Venkat of Health Awareness Centre, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, India, http://www.internetindia.com/health/health.htm

Alan Lamm, author and Kinesiologist/Homoeopath, http://www.alanlam.demon.co.uk/dyk3.htm

Neal D. Barnard, M.D., president, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Washington, D.C., http://www.sai.com/pcrm

Susan O. Henry, SusanHenry@aol.com,