Why is regular milk bad for you

As the only animal to drink the milk of another species, humans have an unusual relationship with the white stuff. Most other animals are weaned off milk in infancy, once we start to need more complex foods. So why do humans keep drinking it? People living in parts of the world where cows were domesticated — starting in south-west Asia and spreading into Europe — only evolved to digest lactose around 10, years ago.

The rest cut back their production after the weaning phase of infancy. Most people, then, become lactose intolerant , making milk-drinking Europeans, along with some African, Middle Eastern and Southern Asian populations , the exception rather than the rule.

Read more about which humans evolved to drink milk, and why. It also contains magnesium, which is important for bone development and muscle function, and whey and casein , which have been found to play a role in lowering blood pressure.

Exploring the ever-expanding realm of dairy alternatives is a great way to reduce the suffering of cows on factory farms, and to shrink your carbon footprint. T he dairy industry has long peddled the idea that milk is completely healthy, and even that it's a critical part of a balanced diet. But the charming milk mustaches of viral advertising campaigns conceal darker truths.

Milk has been linked to increased risks of cancer, heart disease, obesity, and other serious conditions. And the way cow's milk is produced, along with its environmental costs, has long been hidden by an industry intent on generating profits at any cost.

The truth about cow's milk may inspire you to search out the many plant-based alternatives that are becoming more popular by the day. Far from being the health elixir touted by the dairy industry , cow's milk is increasingly understood to cause many adverse health effects.

Frequent consumption of cow's milk can promote deadly diseases, fractured bones, and acne-riddled skin. Below are a few common health impacts associated with frequently consuming cow milk. Humans are the only animals to drink milk into adulthood, and the only ones to drink milk from another species. Just as human milk is designed exclusively for human babies, cow milk was evolved to be consumed only by young cows.

For this reason, many people are lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance is the inability to digest lactose, a protein found in milk, due to the absence of an enzyme in the digestive system.

The Food Empowerment Project has termed this condition "lactose normal" given the significant proportion of people who are unable to digest lactose, a majority of whom are people of color. Thirty-six percent of Americans say they have trouble digesting lactose.

This amounts to roughly million people. Dairy products, particularly whole milks, contain high levels of saturated fats, which can increase the risk of heart disease.

You should, of course, get enough calcium — but experts say you're much better off getting it from dairy-free sources that don't carry all these risks. On average, we absorb just 30 percent of the calcium found in milk , yogurt, and cheese; but we absorb twice the amount of calcium if we eat veggies like kale, broccoli, bok choy, spinach and lots of other plant-based foods that are really good for you in lots of ways.

This is true even if your milk and yogurt is organic. Because dairy cows are kept on sex hormones or pregnant for their entire lives in order to lactate for humans year-round, when you consume dairy, you're also taking in a significant amount of the sex hormones estrogen and progesterone. We know that an increased exposure to estrogen increases the risk of cancer, and dairy accounts for 60 percent to 80 percent of estrogens consumed by humans today.

Davaasambuu Ganmaa said in a talk at Harvard. Hormones in milk might also be to blame for the rise of "man boobs ": A Japanese study found that men's testosterone levels decreased after they began drinking milk. When it comes to non-organic milk, your risks are even higher. Once introduced into the human body, these hormones may also affect your normal hormonal function. If you have a history of cancer in your family, you might want to seriously watch how much dairy you're eating. In , Harvard researchers published the results of a meta study that looked at , women aged 26 to Those who had the highest intake of meat and dairy products also had the highest risk of breast cancer 33 percent more than those who consumed the least.

But does industry funding ever sway the outcome? He scoured the Medline database, which includes every reputable health-science journal, and came up with 79 studies on milk published between and More than one-third of the studies received at least some dairy industry funding.

Of the 15 studies funded entirely by companies, not a single paper reached conclusions unfavorable to corporate interests. Good-for-you claims have always been central to the success of the modern dairy industry. In the s, the biggest consumers of milk were busy mothers who gave it to their babies as a substitute for breast milk. Over the next few decades, a time when American cities were rife with overcrowding and disease, milk ads and labels on cartons featured rosy-cheeked milkmaids and idealized farm scenes.

By the Great Depression, when prices collapsed, the perception of milk as nutritious helped the dairy industry win its first government subsidies. In , under the National School Lunch Act, every subsidized school lunch was required to include enough dairy to equal at least the amount in a cup of whole milk.

George McGovern D-S. They called for boosting consumption of vegetables and whole grains while moderating consumption of sugar and animal fats—including fat from dairy products. In , the industry squeezed more than 24 billion gallons of milk from 9.

The amount of milk sent to China, fueled by the demands of a rising middle class and anxiety about food safety, increased by a staggering percent from to For a government-backed initiative, the checkoff program can at times seem blind to public health matters. The mounting evidence against dairy does not seem to have swayed the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation recommends that men cap calcium intake at 1, milligrams a day. But even that amount might be superfluous. Kiera Butler. Josh Harkinson. Matt Simon. Dan Spinelli. Noah Y. Fairtrade America.