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MILTON
R. MILLS Science, however, has been raining on dairy's parade. Observations
in South African black townships, with virtually no dairy consumption,
showed residents there experience almost no osteoporosis, while the chronic
bone disease afflicts millions in dairy-devouring places such as Scandinavia,
Canada, and the United States. In a finding published in the American Journal
of Public Health in June 1997, the 12-year Harvard Nurses' Study of almost
78,000 people found those regularly consuming dairy products had no protection
at all against hip and forearm fractures. Indeed, women drinking three
glasses of milk daily had more fractures than women who rarely or never
touched milk.
Other studies are investigating dairy's links with breast cancer,
ovarian cancer, iron deficiency, insulin-dependent diabetes, cataracts,
food allergies, heart disease, asthma and colic. Common toxic contaminants
in dairy include pesticides, drugs and antibiotic traces.
In attacking cow's milk, PETA actually echoes the growing number
of nutritionists and doctors -- the late pediatrician Benjamin Spock among
them -- wiping off their milk mustaches.
From my perspective as an African-American physician, there is
another troubling side to dairy promotions, and especially to government
recommendations that it be part of every school lunch meal and similar
nutrition programs.
While only about 15 percent to 20 percent of U.S. whites are intolerant
of the milk sugar lactose, some 95 percent of Asian Americans, about 70
percent of African Americans and Native Americans, and more than 50 percent
of Mexican-Americans cannot digest it. Many get quite sick from it. Nature
starts to remove the enzymes that digest milk sugar once we have passed
the age of weaning.
Indeed, one can call lactose intolerance nature's normal warning
signal not to ``do dairy,'' akin to the protective pain signals prompting
you to snatch your hand away from a hot stove. Of course, some advocate
taking lactose-tolerance pills or adding small amounts of dairy at intervals
throughout the day to ``trick'' the body into accepting milk, ice cream,
and so on. But, if you wouldn't want to trick your hand into not feeling
a searingly painful stove, why would you want to temporarily mask the unhealthy
downside of dairy? Being lactose-intolerant really constitutes genetic
good luck.
It's bad enough that current federal dietary guidelines encourage
meat consumption, though they do list nutritionally sound alternatives,
such as legumes (beans and peas). However, the 1992-issued federal Food
Guide Pyramid's ``dairy section'' doesn't even bother to list substitutes,
though the 2000 Dietary Guidelines for Americans draft does finally mention
soymilk. Indeed, healthy dairy-free alternatives such as fortified soymilk
and calcium-set tofu have become increasingly available in supermarkets,
as well as in health food stores and food co-ops.
Calcium, dairy's big ``health'' selling point, does indeed strengthen
teeth and bones. But it's readily absorbable from broccoli, kale, mustard
greens, turnip greens, Brussels sprouts, pinto beans, navy beans, black-eyed
peas, calcium-set tofu, and, of course, the new fortified orange juice
and apple juice products. And none of those haul the health-damaging freight
that dairy does.
So, for your health's sake, why not replace cow's milk with soymilk
and other alternatives?
Got milk? For many people, there are reasons to get rid of it
Milton R. Mills, M.D., a Stanford University-trained
physician specializing in nutrition, practices in Virginia and volunteers
as associate director of preventive medicine at the Washington-based Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine. He wrote this column for the Knight
Ridder/Tribune News Service.
