For the month of January we will be discussing 'the truth about

Transformation
January 2011



Dear Friends,

I would like to wish you all a happy and safe new year; a year of good health and prosperity!

I hope you have found Transformation E-news informative and we hope to continue bringing you the latest in diet and health information in 2011.

For the month of January we will be discussing 'the truth about dairy' and some of the research findings of Dr. T.Colin Campbell.


The Dairy Deception

Today technologies change rapidly as we easily become accustomed to new innovative products and services on regular basis. Many of our customary habits however may be normal every day practice, but not necessarily natural for humans. Let’s have a quick look at dairy foods and see if we can bring some logic and science together.

"Dairy products are high in cholesterol and fat and contain no fibre, a composition that most responsible practitioners would agree is not healthy for human consumption. Mammals milk is designed to feed baby mammals. The composition of each mammals milk is specifically designed for that type of species to help it grow a multiple of its birth size in a very short period of time. Humans are the only species that consume the milk of another species. For example cow’s milk is designed to help baby cows grow from roughly 40kg at birth to around 130kg in less than two years. Humans grow from 2.7kg to 3.5kg at birth to about 45kg to 90kg over 18 years." Dr. Pam Popper PhD ND.

Why you are not still breast feeding? Despite what the dairy industry would have us believe, milk was never designed to be consumed over a lifetime. It was designed for each particular species, in its early stages of development, to promote rapid growth until nutritional requirements were met and progression to solid whole foods was made. In the case of cows, this means grass. After the age of weaning, calves (like all mammals) have no biological need for milk at all and there is never a need to drink the milk of another species. Dairy foods are calorie dense and promote weight gain. If you view the current Australian statistics on health, you will see that many adults are experiencing this type of rapid growth, we just call it, the battle of the bulge!

Legitimate research has now linked the consumption of dairy to osteoporosis (1, 2), several types of cancer (3, 4, and 5), acne, juvenile diabetes (6, 7) and even autism. Osteoporosis? Isn't that why we are told to consume dairy regularly? When humans metabolise animal protein (of any description, even milk protein) it is highly acid forming and increases total acid load to the body. Since the body wants to seek alkalinity, it draws on its calcium reserves to neutralise the acidity. Where are our body's biggest calcium stores? In your bones!

"It would be hard to think of a worse vehicle for delivering calcium to the body" Dr. Neal D. Barnard MD

Researchers are looking, not only at whether milk increases cancer risk, but how. The answer, apparently, is in the way milk affects a man's hormones. Dairy products boost the amount of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I) in the blood. In turn, IGF-I promotes cancer cell growth (8,9). A small amount is normally in the bloodstream, but several recent studies have linked increased IGF-I levels to prostate cancer and possibly to breast cancer as well.

What about organic dairy products? Organic dairy is better from the stand point that it is free from drugs and antibiotics, however, research shows that it is the amino acid profiles that make up milk proteins that fuel cancer development. They do not change as a result of how the animals are fed or how the animal products are treated.

Dr. Campbell explains;

"The adverse effects of animal protein, as illustrated in our laboratory by the effects casein, are related to their amino acid composition, not to the effects of pasteurization, homogenization, or of the presence of hormones, pesticides, etc. Even though pasteurization and homogenization may cause slight changes in the physical characteristics of proteins, I know of no evidence where the amino acid composition is altered by these treatments.

This focus on amino acid composition of proteins is important because animal based protein will be the same regardless whether it is provided by grass-fed or feed lot fed animals. Moreover, the casein that we used in our extensive experiments was produced before hormones were introduced and before factory farming became the norm, thus it represented mostly animals that were grass-fed.

There have been many different kinds of studies for well over a half century showing that the nutritional responses of different proteins are attributed to their differing amino acid compositions that have nothing to do with pasteurization and homogenisation or contamination with with foreign chemicals. These differences in nutritional responses disappear when any limiting amino acids are restored.

In our case, for example, we found that casein was a powerful promoter of experimental cancer (in dozens of experiments over a period of more than 30 years) and that this effect was attributed to a large number of highly integrated reactions within the cell and well as within the body. Two of the more prominent of these biochemical/physiological responses result from increased production of growth hormones and an elevation in body acid load (metabolic acidosis) that impacts a number of critical enzyme activities. Wheat protein, unlike casein for example, did not stimulate cancer development but when its limiting amino acid, lysine, was restored, it acted just like casein.

There have been literally thousands of studies going back many decades showing a similar effect on body growth and other events associated with body growth--all resulting from differences in amino acid composition of different proteins. These differences have long been described by the concept of "biological value" or, perhaps, "protein efficiency ratio", which served as a starting point for my own research career that started with my doctoral dissertation program more than 50 years ago." Dr. T.Colin Campbell PhD. Author of The China Study

References:

1. Feskanich D, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Colditz GA. Milk, dietary calcium, and bone fractures in women: a 12-year prospective study. Am J Publ Health 1997;87:992-7.
2. Cumming RG, Klineberg RJ. Case-control study of risk factors for hip fractures in the elderly. Am J Epidemiol 1994;139:493-503.
3. Cramer DW, Greenberg ER, Titus-Ernstoff L, et al. A case-control study of galactose consumption and metabolism in relation to ovarian cancer. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2000;9:95-101.
4. Larsson SC, Bergkvist L, Wolk A. Milk and lactose intakes and ovarian cancer risk in the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004;80:1353-7.
5. Cho E, Spiegelman D, Hunter DJ, et al. Premenopausal fat intake and risk of breast cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst 2003;95:1079-85.
6. Scott FW. Cow milk and insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus: is there a relationship? Am J Clin Nutr. 1990;51:489-91.
7. Karjalainen J, Martin JM, Knip M, et al. A bovine albumin peptide as a possible trigger of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. N Engl J Med. 1992;327:302-7.
8. Cohen P. Serum insulin-like growth factor-I levels and prostate cancer risk-interpreting the evidence. J Natl Cancer Inst 1998;90:876-9.
9. Heaney RP, McCarron DA, Dawson-Hughes B, et al. Dietary changes favorably affect bone remodeling in older adults. J Am Dietetic Asso 1999;99:1228-33. IGF1




Sincerely,

Sean Kirsten
Transformation