Diet – Can Dairy Cause Disease?

Dairy food may calm the digestive and nervous systems but what is the cost? It has been well documented that Dairy on its own or in combination with other factors can contribute to serious illnesses.

World-wide, men seem far more likely to die of prostate cancer in countries where dairy consumption is high than in countries where it is low. A study published in 1977 revealed that 10 men die of prostate cancer in Western Europe for every one who dies in Asia.

What about this growth hormone they feed cows with in the USA? Fifty years ago, the average cow produced 20,000 pounds of milk every year. Today, top producing bovines are producing 50,000 pounds per year. This dramatic increase is due to antibiotics, drugs and recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH). The use of rBGH can cause udder infections in our bovine. And.. more antibiotics are fed to the poor animals. This and the pesticides ingested by the animal find their way to our plates and glasses.

“The milk from cows treated with rBGH contains elevated levels insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), one of the most powerful growth factors ever identified. IGF-1 doesn’t cause cancer but it can stimulate its growth. Recent reports have shown a 7 fold increase in the incidence of breast cancer in women with the highest IGF-1 levels and a 4 fold prostate cancer increase in men with the highest IGF-1 levels.

In 1995 researchers at the National Institutes of Health reported that IGF-1 plays a central role in the progression of many childhood cancers and in the growth of tumours in breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, melanoma, and cancers of the pancreas and prostate. In September 1997 an international team of researchers reported the first epidemiological evidence that high IGF-1 concentrations are closely linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer.

The effects of IGF-1 concentrations on prostate cancer risk were found to be astoundingly large – much higher than for any other known risk factor. Men having an IGF-1 level between approximately 300 and 500 ng/mL were found to have more than four times the risk of developing prostate cancer than did men with a level between 100 and 185 ng/mL.”

The good news is that the European Union has a ban on IGF-1 treated cows. Keep an eye on the news if you live in the UK though. We are never far behind the USA…

Casein, the protein in cheese, milk, cream, butter and other dairy foods cannot be assimilated easily and begins to accumulate in an undigested state in the upper intestine, putrefying, producing toxins, and leading to a weakening of the gastric, intestinal, pancreatic and biliary systems as well as mucous deposits.

The inability to digest milk or other dairy products is known as lactose intolerance and is found in about 50 to 90% of the world’s population groups with the exception of those of Scandinavian origin.

Dairy food according to Macrobiotic principles affects the breast, uterus, ovaries, prostate, thyroid, nasal cavities, pituitary gland, the cochlea in the ear, and the cerebral area surrounding the mid brain. Its adverse affects first appear as an accumulation of mucus and fat and then the formation of cysts, tumours and finally cancer. Many people who eat or have eaten dairy food have an accumulation of mucus in the nasal cavities and inner ear often resulting in hay fever and hearing problems.

Consumption of dairy food leads to stones in the kidney and the gallbladder. The development of breast cysts and tumours and finally breast cancer. In Asia, where many people drink no milk at all, breast cancer tends to be rare. In rural China, for example, among women aged 35 to 64, Campbell found that breast cancer deaths averaged 8.7 per 100,000, as opposed to 44 per 100,000 in the US, about a 5-fold difference.

Other problems include vaginal discharges, ovarian cysts, fibrosis and uterine cancer, ovarian cancer and prostate fat accumulation including infertility. Mucous accumulation in the lungs can cause breathing difficulties and possible asthma. This with tobacco traps tars may lead to cancer of the lungs. Other problems include cramps, diarrhoea, allergies, iron-deficiency, and aggressive and antisocial behaviour. Atherosclerosis, heart attacks arthritis, type 1 diabetes and several forms of cancer.

According to a report published by the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology Committee on Adverse Reactions to Food (part of the National Institutes of Health), the allergies of up to one third of children tested cleared after milk was removed from their diet.

Are other dairy products safer than milk?

Each bite of hard cheese has TEN TIMES whatever was in that sip of milk… because it takes ten pounds of milk to make one pound of cheese. Each bite of ice cream has 12 times … and every swipe of butter 21 times whatever is contained in the fat molecules in a sip of milk.

What do (educated) researchers and scientists says about dairy? Dr. T. Colin Campbell, PhD, a prestigious nutritional biochemist at Cornell University states:

* The ultimate problem with cow’s milk is that nature concocts different formulas of mother’s milk for different species. What’s good for baby calves isn’t necessarily good for human babies or adults. “Isn’t it strange that we’re the only species that suckles from another species?”

* Dr. Campbell theorises that cow’s milk unnaturally stimulates enzymes and growth hormones in the human body that increase the risk of various diseases.

* He has also come to the conclusion that cow’s milk may not even do what it is supposed to do best – build strong bones, since recent studies suggest that humans may need less calcium for strong bones than was once believed. Additionally, other foods, including various vegetables and legumes, may be a better source than cow’s milk.

In 1965, Dr. Campbell worked as co-ordinator of a US Aid project in the Philippines, where poverty stricken children were dying mysteriously from liver cancer believed to be linked to malnutrition. However, to his surprise, Campbell discovered that the incidence of liver cancer was especially high among some of the best nourished kids, whose diets were supplemented with powdered milk provided through a US subsidised program. He was completely baffled until he read about a 1968 research study conducted in India and published in the Archives of Pathology (Arch Pathol 1968 Feb;85(2):133-7), which linked a milk protein to liver cancer in lab rats.

Homogenisation and pasteurisation

Milk is typically pasteurised more than once to kill off the germs before it gets to your table… every time at 162 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds.

This process unfortunately also kills the enzymes that would allow us to better digest the stuff and also gets rid of some 50% of the vitamins. Several studies have demonstrated that calves that were fed their mother’s milk that had been pasteurised died within 60 days. Don’t you just love it!

Raw, unpasteurised, milk contains beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidolphilus, which holds putrefactive bacteria in check.

You may ask yourself by now: Why do we bother to pasteurise?

The answer to this is very simple:

1.  It allows farmers and suppliers to keep the milk longer before it goes bad.

2.  It allows farmers to have slacker standards of cleanliness

Homogenisation breaks up large milk molecules into small ones allowing them to get into the bloodstream!  This becomes an expressway for any fat-borne toxins (lead, dioxin’s, etc.) into your (otherwise) most protected organs. Without homogenisation, large fat molecules cannot get through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream.  The cream no longer rises… because homogenisation

Statistics “In 1981 Stephen Seely… obtained mortality data from the World Health Organisation… and calculated correlation coefficients for various foods and food components… comparing quantity consumed with mortality rates from different countries… (Seely) found that milk and milk products gave the highest correlation coefficient, while sugar, animal proteins and animal fats came in second, third, and fourth, respectively.”

Get Healthy: Add Fresh Seafood To Your Diet

Although the relation between eating fresh seafood and general improvements with regard to health has been known for ages, the exact mechanisms behind the phenomenon might have been considered somewhat ambiguous until recently. A high-protein and low-fat kind of sustenance as various fish and other sea fauna species are, not all the benefits provided by eating them could have been explained via such simple reasons.

Recent research has shown that Mercury levels are higher in farm raised fish than they are in wild caught fish.  The conclusion of this discovery is that wild caught fish are more healthy for you than the farm raised counterparts.  Even though long term studies have not been conducted on the effects of eating the farm raised fish it is assumed it will have negative effects.

Even though the industry is manipulating almost every food source, and adding all kinds of growth hormones, biologically altering food and generally meddling with nature.  All in the name of increaseing profits, fish remains a good choice for a healthy diet.

Following the introduction of new technologies, however, and the discovery of omega-3 fatty acids and their key role to various aspects of human health, the benefits of enjoying a diet rich in, for instance, lobster meat or other kinds of fresh seafood suddenly became far more visible and clear.

The almost magical activity by the omega-3s starts as early as on fetal stage of human development. Docosahexaenoic acid, commonly found in fish, crab and lobster meat, is an essential component for building brain and nerve fetal tissue as well as the retina. Consequently, research suggests that higher consumption of fresh seafood low in mercury by a pregnant woman is beneficial for infant cognition.

Studies indicate very positive health advantages from ingesting omega-3, including the reduction of asthma development and other respiratory ailments such as airway inflammation in young children. Good sources of omega-3 can be found in live lobster and king crab, which can be enjoyed and ingested into adulthood.

Eating fresh seafood was shown to lower the rates of depression in post-partum women as well as lower their risk of breast cancer. Consuming Omega 3s also protected against a number of heart diseases, prevented strokes, and improved eye and neurological functioning. Lastly, they were shown to stop mental deterioration in later years, therefore saving the contented fresh seafood afficionados manifold the expenses of their hobby.

What is more, fish contain more than just one advisable substance. Vitamin D they are also rich in offers potent anti-cancer and bone-building properties, while Astaxanthin, a powerful anti-oxidant found in salmon and giving it the characteristic orange color, confers a host of documented health benefits.

To conclude, eating natural ingredients found in most food items is nearly the same as the practices of most modern medical trends and the thought that it is much easier to prevent a disease than it is to cure it. Basically – eat right and stay healthy.

Lose Weight Gain Muscle

Only recently have nutritionists and sports scientists started to realise that in order to lose weight, gain muscle. It seems strange but makes perfect sense when you take a closer look at the process.

After all, muscle requires a lot of nutrients to keep it in perfect condition so naturally someone with more muscle will burn more calories, and so lose weight easier, than someone with less muscle.

There is something of a problem here though – and that is that gaining muscle requires additional nutrients in the diet typically, whilst weight loss requires fewer calories than are required for maintainance levels.

There are a number of books which have mereged recently however which aim to solve this riddle.

It seems that in order to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time you should eat a similar number of calories to your standard level (as worked out using one of the many online calorie calculators) but to consume these nutrients in a very specific form.

That form, of course, is in a low fat, moderate carb and high protein diet. Carbohydrate sources are selected carefully so that the body has to work hard to break them down into a useable form, thus slowing the flow of sugars into the blood and reducing the chances of any being stored as fat.

Ideal carb sources include brown rice, wholewheat pasta and a range of non-starchy vegetables. Add into this mix low fat and high protein sources like cottage cheese, egg whites (or substitute) and a range of meats and you have the basis of a diet that will enable you to lose weight and gain muscle.

Exercising with weights should be hard and you should aim for heavy weights that can only be lifted for around 10 reps. Keep increasing the weight lifted during each workout so as to “force” your muscles to grow and adapt. What seems to work well is a workout 2-3 times a week that focuses on each muscle group in turn, and exercising each with two different exercises.

Thus, you would do 10 reps of a bicep exercise (such as a bicep curl) then 10 reps of another bicep exercise (such as a hammer curl) then move into the next muscle group.

A workout should take no more than around 45 minutes as after this time your body has a a harder time coping with the intensity of the workout and frankly, if you feel you could keep going for another half an hour to an hour, it’s probably the case that you’re not actually working out hard enough. When I have finished one of these workouts I can barely move my muscles are so tired.

You may find initially that you do put on a small amount of weight but this shouldn’t be a major concern as don’t forget that muscle weighs more than the fat you are trying to lose so this exchange may cause a few peaks and troughs to appear.

However over the longer term you should find your fat levels start to drop whilst your lean muscle mass increases, enabling you to lose weight and gain muscle together.