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Diabetes rates are reaching epidemic proportions in developed countries where junk diets and obesity is common. Diabetes is a serious and debilitating disease caused by the body's failure to control blood sugar levels. This is referred to as 'insulin resistance'. A 2007 study by the University of Cardiff in the UK shows that drinking a pint of milk a day can protect men against heart disease and diabetes. But when you examine the research in detail it is revealed as flawed, and the conclusions as false and misleading. Jon Barron of The Baseline of Health Foundation looked at this study in detail and he makes the following five comments: 1. The 20-year study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, looked at how human insulin resistance was affected by the consumption of dairy milk. According to the study, which tracked 2,375 men aged between 45 and 59 over a 20 year period, consuming milk reduces the risk of insulin resistance. The more milk they consumed, the lower the risk of diabetes. 2. In reality, although the study tracked a lower risk of insulin resistance with increased milk consumption, it found little actual correlation between milk consumption and the incidence of diabetes itself. The incidence of heart disease was not tracked, and the data showed only 7 more cases of diabetes among the lowest consumers of dairy versus the highest. 3. Also, people who had diabetes at the start of the study were excluded from the results so that we don't know if their condition improved or deteriorated while drinking milk. That would be significant information in determining the overall health value of dairy when it comes to metabolic syndrome. 4. A big failing in the research was the lack of references to the overall diet of participants. The data only refers to the amount of milk and dairy products people were consuming, nothing else. If you drink more milk, you're bound to drink less of something else. Conversely, if you drink less milk, you are likely to drink more of something else. If that something else is sweetened tea, coffee, soda pop, milk shake, etc. then that can be a major factor in the incidence of diabetes. 5. It seems that the so-called health benefits attributed to milk in the study may have nothing to do with milk at all. They may instead be a reflection of a better diet. It is likely that the men drinking milk were consuming less sugary foods, but the study doesn't tell us either way. Clearly, without the data, the study is meaningless and misleading. When you look at the research into diabetes there are many studies (too numerous to mention here) linking milk consumption with a higher incidence of diabetes, and there are virtually no studies suggesting that milk prevents diabetes. In her book Nurturing Traditions (1999) Sally Fallon makes the following comment: 'There is some evidence that pasteurization alters milk lactase (a form of sugar), making it more readily absorbable. This and the fact that pasteurized milk puts an unnecessary strain on the pancreas to produce digestive enzymes, may explain why milk consumption has been linked to diabetes'. Other research confirms this. Lactose undergoes condensation and molecular changes as a result of heat treatment. Lactose in milk converts to glucose and galactose in the bloodstream. Over time, the constant drip feed of glucose into the bloodstream (from daily milk consumption) can create insulin resistance. With organic milk the risk of diabetes is even greater. This is so because most organic milk sold in the world (over 80 percent) is UHT milk. In North America virtually all organic milk is UHT. The pasteurization temperature of UHT is double that of regular milk. This means that such milk is more likely to flood the bloodstream with milk sugar, increasing the risk of diabetes. See below for details of a new book 'Organic Milk Myth' which explains this in more detail with supporting evidence.
Article Source: http://www.itempad.com
Organic Milk Myth explodes the myth that organic milk is better for health by proving that organic milk is, in fact, much worse for health compared to regular pasteurized milk. See Organic Milk Myth now and get the truth.
