I’m having a big 'ole discussion with a friend of mine here, and need to refer to the Teeming Millions for some substance . I distinctly remember being taught that milk was “designed” for the raising of the young of a species and that people loose the ability to properly digest milk at an early age, once the weaning stage had passed. More specifically, I remember being taught that drinking milk as an adult was not especially beneficial, in spite of what the frequent marketing campaigns would have one believe, as the adult body does not digest milk efficiently, and most of what the body does get out of it is contained in a fairly healthy diet anyway. I know that there is a large culture of drinking milk, especially in the US, and I don’t want this to turn into an American Way Of Life thread or anything like that, but is there a large body of independant evidence which shows that drinking milk is really all that it is cracked up to be? I’ve had a look on the web, but it is hard to find much of anything that isn’t on a web site that isn’t linked with the promotion of milk in general anyway. Anybody have the straight dope on this?
Milk is very good for you. Except that it may cause:
Osteoporosis, Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Lactose Intolerance, Vitamin D Toxicity, {http://www.pcrm.org/health/Info_on_Veg_Diets/dairy.html}
Also try this site for some cool ‘facts?’.
http://www.milksucks.com/
But now what am I supposed to put on my cereal??
There’s an article on the subject in this month’s Discover magazine.
Yes, milk is designed to nurture the young of the particular species. However, people have always drunk the milk of other mammals or made cheese or yogurt or something out of it, mainly cow, horse, sheep, goat, yak, camel, and water buffalo.
Yes, many adults do lose the ability to digest milk. This is due to a deficiency in the enzyme “lactose”. We did have a thread a while back discussing this, but I don’t have time to go look for it. You are “lactose intolerant” if dairy products give you gas and/or diarrhea. There’s a whole body of scientific stuff dealing with which ethnic groups digest dairy products better or worse (the Chinese can’t, etc.)
People who can’t drink milk CAN drink “Lact-Aid” or chew one of those Dairy-Eze pills, which supplies the necessary enzyme.
Concerning whether adults really need that much calcium, first you have to realize there’s a huge difference between men and women. (Duh.) Women are much more subject to osteoporosis in later years, after they go through menopause, because of the way that female hormones are linked to how your body stores and utilizes calcium. Yes, men can probably get all the calcium they need from the cheese on their pizza, but women definitely need to pay attention to their calcium intake.
Every health website out there will address this issue, and I wouldn’t suppose that any of them would have a particular pro-milk-drinking axe to grind. Look around.
On second thought, perhaps I will retract the water buffalo.
Also, “lactase” is the enzyme, right? “Lactose” is the milk sugar. No? Yes? Now I’m getting confused.
This is what I get for trying to post sensibly with Pokemon running in the other room.
According to this short description in Britannica,
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/3/0,5716,47863+1+46774,00.html
…lactose intolerance can be a problem even in newborns – some people just don’t produce enough lactase to digest even breastmilk; must have been a serious problem way back before lactose-free formula. So it doesn’t seem to be age-related.
Lately I get the impression we just start the same threads over and over again and we don’t even wait too long for that.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=31429
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=621708
Thanks Sailor, I don’t check the board as often as I should so those other threads passed me by. How embarrassing.
Duck Duck Goose
You are correct. The suffix “-ase” indicates an enzyme in biology (oxidase, protease); “-ose” indicates sugar (glucose, sucrose).