I recall hearing somewhere, I can’t remember where, that milk actually causes calcium deficiency. It had something to do with the protein in milk bonding to the calcium already in your body. According to the source the amount of calcium in milk was less then the amount bonded (and therefore rendered usless) by the protiens. Now, know very little about Chemistry, so I don’t even know if this is possible, but just on the off chance, can anyone confirm or deny this claim?
One side says one thing, and has research to back them, the other side says another and they have research backing them as well. Try using the search function for General Questions and Great Debates searching for ‘milk’ in the thread title. There have been several threads in the past year and a half about this and I don’t believe there is much new research in that time frame from either side.
I tried this, and didn’t come up with anything. I actually searched under Milk + Calcium. Maybe I was just being too picky, but when I searched with just “Milk” I got way to many threads to sort through.
Try…
SDMB - Does milk really do a body good
SDMB - Should we not be drinking milk
SDMB - Is there such a thing as too much milk
SDMB - Are asian women immune to osteoporosis ?
Those threads should quench your thirst.
Forgot to mention that the last thread on asian women and osteoporosis is probably the one to look in first.
That’s bullshit. Protein does not tie up calcium. Milk is good for you, unless you’re lactase intolerant. I am slightly, but a little milk doesn’t bother me, and I eat a lot of yogurt. Even if you’re lactase intolerant, yogurt won’t bother you because the bacteria in the yogurt does the digestion.
Calcium can be bound by oxalate. Spinach, for example, has a lot of oxalate and the calcium in the spinach is bound by that.
This is what I’ve read. I’m sure a chemist will come along and give more details.
As I remember, the PETA side’s evidence is pretty skimpy and smacks of modifying the data to achieve certain results. They claim that Asians get less osteoporosis, Asians drink less milk, therefore milk causes osteoporosis. False logic gives false results, boys and girls. Maybe it’s more to do with the soy in Asian diets. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s any one of a thousand factors PETA, in their desire to get certain results, overlooked. Doubt heavily any results gotten by a group as political as PETA.
For your consideration. Cow’s milk may be involved with Multiple Sclerosis.
MS is an autoimmune disease, meaning in its case that the body attacks its own cells that are involved in insulating nerve cells.
There are proteins, such as butrlyphilin (sp?), that are
involved with the packaging of the lipid droplets that are present in cow’s milk.
This is really fuzzy at present, but it it’s possible that these foreign cow proteins have homology with proteins normally present on the myelin sheaths of nerve cells.
So the immune system can recognize these proteins, but if they’re confined to the GI tract, no big deal.
But if you get an immune response against these proteins and homologs are found in the body, there might be trouble–like MS.
Like I said, this is not proven at all as yet, but don’t be suprised when you read about in the papers 5 years from now.
I think that’s only if you drink cow’s milk as a child. In addition, breast milk contains many immunosuppressant agents which help the growing child develop the proper immunology system. All other mammals drink their mother’s milk when they are young. Many people lose the enzymes to digest lactose (I think I said “lactase” in the prior post) as they mature. It appears that Nature did not mean for adults to drink milk.
That being said, however, many other adult mammals do drink milk, such as cats. An adult will not develop MS by drinking cow’s milk.
Milk is not bad for you. If it were, the FDA would have pulled it off the shelf a long time ago.
I don’t know if this was posted before in any of the linked threads, but I’ll mention it in case it wasn’t. At
http://www.discover.com/recent_issue/index.html
there is an article from the August 2000 issue of Discover magazine, entitled “Worrying About Milk”, which presents some of the anti-milk case.
Disclaimer: I’m only posting this for informational purposes re one side of the issue. I’m not endorsing it, and IIRC, *Discover did receive a fair amount of criticism for publishing it.
In my last post, the final sentence should have Discover in italics, and no highlighting. Sorry.
Crafter-Man: Do you honestly believe that FDA shit?
Chemicals are classsified according to which congressman an company has in its pocket.
HAS a company in its pocket.
A wonder about drug development. A lot of research is funded by biotech companies who don’t want to hear that their miracle drug don’t work.
That article has little evidence of carcinogens in milk. Aflatoxin is a carcinogen, but I never heard of that being in milk. Peanuts yest. Milk no. Casein is another culprit mentioned, but as the article points out, enormous amounts were fed to rats. It seems like everything is carcinogenic these days.
A little milk is not going to hurt you.
This is meant sarcastically, right?
I dunno what to believe. I still drink milk because I like it, not because I think it’s healthy anymore. I take a supplement for the calcium (Viactiv is like candy–yum). I drink whatever skim milk is on sale, but I buy an organic milk for our toddler, even though it’s damned expensive, comes in those maddening paper cartons, and has caused a few too many late-night runs from store to store looking for someone who has it in stock.
You guys should try kefir. If you like yogurt, you’ll love kefir. If you like milk you’ll also love it. It’s yogurt in liquid form. It’s not just milk with the bacteria added, but it’s fermented just like yogurt.
barbitu8:
Mmmm…rotten milk.
Seriously, what is the proof of kefir (alcoholic content)? I can only imagine what the inventors of it must have gone through ::eek::.
(Ugh, now I can’t get the image of spoiling milk out of my head.)
My bad. It’s not fermented, but cultured. No alcohol. It’s just like yogurt, but in liquid form and tastier. Try it. You’ll like it.
In the interest of preventing ignorance rather than spreading it, as some people seem wont to do:
Derleth said:
Maybe you should check some facts, since (wait for it) . . . PETA didn’t do any research at all. They didn’t even commission any. The studies they cite are published in medical journals and newsletters by independent researchers; they just happen to cite the ones they like, just as the National Dairy Council will cite the ones they like.
In this case, PETA’s “Dump Dairy” campaign in based in part on an article called “Calcium: High Intakes May Double Hip Fracture Rates,” which appeared in the Lunar Osteoporosis Update. To head off the snide comments, Lunar Corporation is a company which manufactures equipment for the diagnosis of osteoporosis and other metabolic bone diseases. They’re owned by General Electric.
FTR, I couldn’t find anything on PETA’s site concerning the studies regarding Asian women, but I may have bungled my search. A quick look at Medline shows several articles that suggest the difference in bone mineral density between Caucasian and Asian women is largely attributable to skeletal size.
Crafter_Man said:
Exactly. Just as they’ve done with cigarettes.