Milk. It does a body good. Or Not.
We know smoking tobacco is not good for kids, but a lot of other things aren’t good. Drinking’s not good. Some would say milk’s not good. Bob Dole
Loren Cordain’s latest newsletter (PDF) is up, and it’s going to make a lot of people unhappy. Why? Because Dr. Cordain is one of those people Bob Dole was talking about who say that milk isn’t good.
The one sentence summation of the newsletter is that betacellulin, a heat-stable hormone found in large concentrations in cow’s milk, attaches to and stimulates the intestinal EGF receptor, possible causing an increase in the incidence of cancer formation and accelerated growth. Money quote from the newsletter:
So what–what if a little betacellulin from cow’s milk gets into your bloodstream–does it matter? You bet it matters. A liter of whole milk (633 kcal) contains 1,930 nano-grams of betacellulin whereas the amount of EGF that your salivary glands secrete is only 35.3 ng per day. The binding affinity of betacellulin to the EGF receptor is greater than that for EGF; consequently betacellulin can displace EGF from the EGF receptor. The amount of betacellulin that you get from drinking even a single cup of milk (457 nanograms) has the capacity to stimulate the EGF receptor 10 times more than what normally would occur during a 24 hour period from EGF in saliva.
Over the past couple of days I’ve received a dozen or so emails and comments asking what I thought about this newsletter. My reaction to it is colored a little by the fact that I don’t drink much milk. Unlike my bride, I don’t drink cream in my coffee, and I don’t eat a whole lot of cheese. So, if I found out that milk was a dangerous food, it wouldn’t change my life much to avoid it entirely. Others may not have the same perspective.
Over the course of the last year or so that Dr. Cordain has been working on this, he and I have corresponded frequently, and he has sent me a slew of papers on betacellulin, EGF, and the EGF receptor–the data is consistent with the information in his newsletter. This idea isn’t published by others; it’s his theory based on his considerable research on the material. And Dr. Cordain, his views on saturated fat notwithstanding, is a very smart guy, so it probably wouldn’t pay totally disregard him.
The idea that milk might not be an ideal has been around for a while. Anthropologist Marvin Harris wrote a number of years back that
This discovery was made fairly recently; it was only in the 1950s that it began to dawn on people that milk was not good for everybody. However, the normal situation was originally regarded as the abnormal one.
The idea also fits with the evolutionary template. In Paleolithic times and before man didn’t drink milk beyond infancy. In fact, after infancy humans developed lactose intolerance, the inability to break down milk sugar. As a consequence, drinking milk would cause GI problems due to this lack of ability to break down and absorb lactose. Since this lactose intolerance is a fairly common finding among adults the world over (there are some societies who have through mutation inactivated the genes responsible for lactose intolerance), it probably served some useful purpose in terms of our survival. Since the EGF receptor, which is normally activated by EGF from saliva, promotes gut healing and maintenance, maybe nature didn’t want its effects interfered with after childhood and used the development of lactose intolerance to achieve its ends.
A reader sent me an article from several years ago from the Townsend Letter on the failure of a couple of pharmaceutical companies to get approval to market their EGF receptor-blocking drugs, the most famous of which was ImClone, the maker of the drug Erbitux. If you recall, ImClone is the company headed by Sam Wachsal, who, when he got advance notice of the FDA denial, sold his stock before the word got out and the price cratered and advised friends, one of whom was Martha Stewart, to do the same. Dr. Wachsal is now doing time–Martha, as everyone knows, has already done hers. This article makes the EGF receptor blocking drugs appear not particularly effective, but since that time, the FDA has approved more trials.
As I wrote earlier, I’m not a milk drinker or a cheese eater, so I don’t really have a dog in this fight. I’ve got enough stuff to work on that really does interest me that I don’t want to spend more time than I already have tracking all this down. If someone else wants to do it, send me whatever you dig up, and I’ll be happy to post it.
Milch – ein gesundes Getränk?…
Anlässlich des ‘Tags der Milch’ den in der Schweiz der Interessenverband der Milchhersteller zu seinem 100jährigen Bestehen ausgerufen hat, gibt es im Kochtopf-Blog einen Event, der die Foodblog-Welt auffordert, ein Milchrezept zu bloggen und damit …
Dr Eades,
Any follow up info on the whether betacellulin is mostly in the whey portion of milk? I don’t drink milk but I do consume protien supplements such as whey and casein, so I’d like to know.
Thanks
Hi Bryan–
I’m not really an expert on betacellulin. As I understand it, betacellulin is primarily in the whey portion of milk. You should ask this question of Loren Cordain, who is working a lot with betacellin these days.
Cheers–
MRE
This is enlightening.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/1/24/nonfat-milk-linked-to-prostate-cancer.aspx
enlightening in some ways, but not others. There is an enormous amount of evidence suggesting milk is beneficial in so many ways, I always am amazed at the bad rap it gets.
In the latest research it is the ONLY food that protects against metabolic syndrome/diabetes. Neither fruit, vegetables, nor fish provided any benefit – which is extroadinary.
”When Steffen and colleagues analyzed the results by specific foods, they found that meat, fried foods and diet soda were all significantly associated with increased risk of metabolic syndrome, but consumption of dairy products was beneficial’.
”Fried foods and soda were also found to present the same dangers, while a diet based on vegetables, fruit, and fish did not show advantageous effects on such a condition. However, dairy products (my insert, that is PASTEURIZED dairy) proved to have some benefits”.
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.asp?n=82742&m=1FNU123&c=mdwytyoturbjxro
”Elwood and co-workers report that a daily pint of milk (that is, standard PASTEURIZED milk) was associated with a 62 per cent risk reduction, while regularly intake of other dairy produce reduced the risk by 56 per cent.”
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/ng.asp?n=78126&m=1FNE712&c=mdwytyoturbjxro
Sure, its probably much better if milk is fermented and raw – and certainly better if it comes from grass-fed cows, but that does not preclude normal, pasteurized milk being health beneficial. The evidence Dr Mercola refers to suggests that full cream milk (that is, pasteurised, full-cream milk) protects against prostate cancer, whereas pasteurized skimmed milk increases the risk of prostate cancer. The logical conclusion from this is as follows:
1. Pasteurization per se has little or no discernible effect on the cancer-protective abilities of full cream milk.
2. The protective effect of milk fat is more likely related to its relationship with the fat-soluble vitamins, A,D, E and K.
Sure, the lack of vitamin D in non-fat or skimmed milk may adversely affect the bioavailability of calcium, which may have an adverse effect on protecting against prostate cancer. But its an indirect effect.
Likewise vitamin A can protect against cancer – eg, bladder cancer, and vitamin K has seriously good cardio-protective capabilities – albeit I will stick to parsely or spinach as my preferred source.
In any event, it suggests Mary Enig might have been right all along in promoting some measure of saturated fats, including milk fat – albeit for other reasons (the destruction of important milk enzymes) she is strongly pro RAW milk.
And there are the obvious benefits of whey and other milk proteins, and probiotic, fermented milks. And as far back as 1993, Japanese researcher Ariyoshi, Y. identified angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors in milk proteins.
Time and space does not permit to expand further, but suffice to say, there is more to milk than meets the eye. This obsession in some quarters with raw milk – for all its probable benefits, should not diminish from the value of plain, ordinary pasteurized milk and dairy products.
Pete Granger
Australia