Lactose Intolerance: The Normal State of Affairs

It has been called the perfect food. It has been heralded as the ultimate source of calcium for our bones. It used to be said that it did a body good. We got it in our school lunches; we dipped our cookies in it; and we even added additional sugar and food dyes to create new flavors. We have been enamored with it from advertising and TV; it has even become a symbol of being cool, because athletes and the famous wear it as mustaches. If they can drink it—I mean, wear it—so can we. It has become a staple in the American culture, like baseball and apple pie. This iconic food source is called MILK.

Breast milk is the primary food source for the developing newborn before the introduction of other sources, i.e., solid foods. Just as other foods, human milk also contains protein, fat, carbohydrates, minerals (sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, and chloride), digestive enzymes, vitamins and, of course, water. Breast milk also has non-nutritional ingredients. These include growth factors, anti-microbials, cytokines (signaling molecules that allow communication between cells), and hormones.

Many have been led to believe that milk is a great source of protein. Let's look at the difference between human breast milk and cow's milk. According to Seminars in Perinatology, mature human milk contains roughly 4.5 grams of fat, 1.1 grams of protein, 6.8 grams of carbohydrate calculated as lactose, and 0.2 grams of mineral constituents expressed as ash. According to The Dairy Council, 3.3 ounces of cow’s milk has roughly 3.9 grams of fat, 3.3 grams of protein, and 4.7 grams of carbs or sugars.

Why is this relevant? You may think milk is milk. However, the nutrient component of milk is specific for that particular species. Cow’s milk is food for calves, and human breast milk is food for human infants. Let’s look at a major difference between human breast milk and cow’s milk. Cow’s milk has roughly three times the amount of protein in it than human breast milk does. The protein component in cow’s milk is suited for the development of calves, which grow to weigh 1,320 pounds at maturity. Cow’s milk also has a higher ratio of casein to whey —typically 80:20—while the same proteins in human milk have a ratio of roughly 40:60. Knowing this fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that cow's milk should not be given to infants in their first year of life. Why? The research is finding the high casein in cows' milk could spark autoimmune diseases, like type 1 diabetes, and often disabling allergies.

Just as it took time to finally understand that smoking is detrimental to health, we are seeing that the consumption of cow’s milk is also a potential hazard. It's becoming clear: milk does a body bad. Here's another reason why. The consumption of cow's milk has been shown to contribute to the development of cancer, precocious puberty (early puberty) and, of course, lactose intolerance. According to the journals Medical Hypothesis, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the consumption of dairy products is linked to the development of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer. Insulin growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is an anabolic (tissue-building) hormone found at high levels in cows' milk. IGF-1 is linked to the production of cancer and an increased hormonal issue called precocious puberty. Precocious puberty is occurring more than ever among many young girls and boys. According to PLOS ONE, there is evidence that greater milk intake is associated with an increased risk of early menarche (the onset of a girl's menstrual period).

All this brings up another fact about cow’s milk that seems to fly under the radar. We’ve been led to believe that an inability to digest the sugar in milk (lactose) is a problem; thus, the ‘condition’ has a diagnosis—lactose intolerance. Let me point out again that drinking the milk of another species is abnormal. Lactase is the enzyme we produce to break down lactose. Once we are weaned and the consumption of milk stops, the gene responsible for producing lactase shuts down production. This is a normal process. Those who eat dairy products but don't produce lactase suffer the uncomfortable symptoms associated with 'lactose intolerance.' Although lactose intolerance is thought of as a problem, it is the normal state of our ancestral digestion. The inability to break down milk sugar as adults is normal. After all, how many people do you know are water intolerant?

References

Van der Pols J, Bain C, Gunnell D, Childhood dairy intake and adult cancer risk: 65-y follow-up of the Boyd Orr cohort. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2007;86:1722–9.

Ganmaa D, Sato A, The possible role of female sex hormones in milk from pregnant cows in the development of breast, ovarian and corpus uteri cancers. Medical Hypotheses (2005) 65, 1028–1037

Giovannucci E, Pollak M, Liu Y, et al., Nutritional predictors of insulin-like growth factor I and their relationships to cancer in men. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention 2003;12:84-89