Milk Is Bad for You

The title pretty much says it all. Milk has been linked by thousands of scientific studies to many illnesses we experience. Here are a few: Migraine headaches, strokes, high blood pressure, allergies, asthma, breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, anemia, kidney stones, and heart disease. Milk causes osteoporosis, yet older women are told to drink lots of milk. Milk is the substance that causes osteoporosis in the first place. Drinking more of it only makes the loss of bone go faster.

To read for days and days about the evils of milk, you can go to http://www.notmilk.com/ .

So much for the scientific evidence. You'd think doctors would know this. You'd think they would tell patients. I asked my doctor about milk.

She said, "Milk is good for you. It has lots of protein and calcium."

"Really?" I was surprised. "Did you have any nutrition classes in med school?"

"Yes, I had a couple of classes. They were electives. Sort of general nutrition."

"Where did you hear that milk is good for you?"

"Oh, I don't know. I guess TV, magazines, things I read. It's a good source of calcium and it's high in protein, so that's got to be good for you."

"Hmmm, check out www.notmilk.com and let me know what you think. There are quite a few studies there that say milk is bad for you."

Had she read some of the scientific studies on milk, she would have known that the protein in milk is a kind of protein that slowly leaches calcium from bones and causes osteoporosis. Like most people, she was relaying the general conversation generated by advertising in mass media, and the message (milk has calcium and protein, and it is good for you) was only half true. Milk has protein and calcium -- and it is very bad for you.

I haven't had another appointment with her since then, and I don't see my doctor socially, so I don't know if she has changed her opinion or not.

A friend of mine had suffered with allergies for several years. Sometimes his allergies would flare up and he would have to go the doctor to get treatments and drugs to clear his sinuses so he could breathe through his nose again. I suggested that he try eliminating milk for a couple of weeks and see what happened. I saw him about three weeks later. He said he had stopped drinking milk. His allergies were gone. That's right, gone. He had been going to a doctor (allergist) for several years. His doctor never told him about milk. My friend is now mostly dairy free. He says that whenever he does try a little (egg nog during the Christmas holidays, or a slice of pizza), he gets the watery eyes, dripping nose, and clogged sinuses within about 30 minutes.

I find it interesting that the only mammals on Earth that drink milk after the first few months of life are humans. We are also the only mammals that drink the milk of other animals. It seems reasonable to me that our bodies were designed to have human milk during the first few months of life, and solid foods thereafter - just like all the other animals on Earth.