by Vic Shayne, PhD

What’s in Your Milk? If you’re like most Americans, you consume at least one or more of the following: butter, milk, eggs, cream, cream cheese, cottage cheese or ice cream. So if these foods are in your diet, one way to be healthier is to make sure they are organic. Otherwise, you’re risking your health.

Non organic versions of these foods contain hormones that cause human hormonal problems, including cancer. Women especially should never eat or drink non-organic dairy products. Never. And, recent studies are showing that men are susceptible to diseases such as prostate cancer.1

Health Tip: Switch to Organic Dairy if you are so inclined to eat dairy products.

Dairy cows are given antibiotics, steroids and other drugs to push them to yield quotas of milk, butter and other foods. Egg laying chickens are also given drugs. These drugs are then passed along to whoever eats the foods from these animals. This is why you have to switch to organic products that do not mistreat their animals in this way.

Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) injections are routinely given to dairy cows to increase their milk yield. Consumption of the milk from rBGH treated cows can cause cancer, particularly the breast cancer. Similarly, consumption of the dairy products and the meat contaminated with steroids may lead to cancer.

Cornell University researchers tell us, “Certain hormones can make young animals gain weight faster. They help reduce the waiting time and the amount of feed eaten by an animal before slaughter in meat industries. In dairy cows, hormones can be used to increase milk production. Thus, hormones can increase the profitability of the meat and dairy industries….While a variety of hormones are produced by our bodies and are essential for normal development of healthy tissues, synthetic steroid hormones used as pharmaceutical drugs, have been found to affect cancer risk. For example, diethylstilbestrol (DES), a synthetic estrogen drug used in the 1960s was withdrawn from use after it was found to increase the risk of vaginal cancer in daughters of treated women. Lifetime exposure to natural steroid hormone estrogen is also associated with an increased risk for breast cancer.”3

Not only do you have to be concerned about hormones in dairy products, you also have to consider the combinations and quantities of such synthetic substances. Cornell University researchers write:

There are six different kinds of steroid hormones that are currently approved by FDA for use in food production in the US: estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, zeranol, trenbolone acetate, and melengestrol acetate. Estradiol and progesterone are natural female sex hormones; testosterone is the natural male sex hormone; zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengesterol acetate are synthetic growth promoters (hormone-like chemicals that can make animals grow faster). Currently, federal regulations allow these hormones to be used on growing cattle and sheep, but not on poultry (chickens, turkeys, ducks) or hogs (pigs). The above hormones are not as useful in increasing weight gain of poultry or hogs.

Still, major universities and government agencies are reluctant to admit the danger that so many hormones present to human health. Why? The power of politics. The dairy industry is a multi-billion-dollar business. They often control and “sponsor” the studies showing there is no health risk. But any intelligent person can see that inundating your body with chemicals cannot be healthful. Independent studies show definite reason for concern.

Neal Barnard, MD, author and researcher, writes:

Major studies suggesting a link between milk and prostate cancer have appeared in medical journals since the 1970s. Two of six cohort studies (research studies following groups of people over time) found increased risk with higher milk intakes. Five studies comparing cancer patients to healthy individuals found a similar association. One of these, conducted in northern Italy, found that frequent dairy consumption could increase risk by two and one-half times.

In 1997, the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research concluded that dairy products should be considered a possible contributor to prostate cancer. And yet another research study came out in April 2000 pointing to a link between dairy and prostate cancer: Harvard’s Physicians’ Health Study followed 20,885 men for 11 years, finding that having two and one-half dairy servings each day boosted prostate cancer risk by 34 percent, compared to having less than one-half serving daily.4

One thought to leave you with regarding the debate over dairy and cancer: “It may take years before scientists uncover exactly how xenoestrogens cause cancer, but the evidence already suggests that there are reasons to be concerned about these synthetic chemicals. ‘As we go forward, activists and scientists together, we must debate the question of what constitutes sufficient evidence to advocate public health action even as we advocate for more research,’ wrote biologist Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D., author of Living Downstream, in the April 1997 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. We needn’t wait, as too many did with tobacco, for conclusive evidence before taking action for our own sake and the health of future generations.”5

If you want to avoid problems, switch to organic.

Sources

1. Meat and dairy consumption and subsequent risk of prostate cancer in a US cohort study. Cancer Causes and Control, 2006. “Overall, consumption of processed meat, but not total meat or red meat, was associated with a possible increased risk of total prostate cancer in this prospective study. Higher intake of dairy foods but not calcium was positively associated with prostate cancer.”
2. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 80, No. 1, 5-14, July 2004
3. Consumer Concerns About Hormones in Foods, Cornell University, June 2000
4. Barnard, MD, Neal, Milk and Prostate Cancer: The Evidence Mounts, 2007
5. Ikramuddin, Aisha, Breast Cancer: Industrial Byproduct? The Green Guide, 2008

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