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Got milk? Maybe you shouldn’t.
Adults continue to drink milk despite resulting health problems

By Madeline Lumley

 
A tall, cold glass of milk: It’s about as American as blue jeans and baseball. And for many, it’s a staple of an everyday diet. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends adults drink three cups of low-fat or non-fat milk every day (unless, of course, someone is lactose-intolerant). If you were to drink those three cups of milk per day, you’d drink 1,095 cups per year — a little over 68 gallons.

Over the last several years, however, an increasing number of people are questioning whether milk — particularly cow’s milk — should even be a part of Americans’ diets. Led by anti-milk organizations like the Dairy Education Board and buoyed by recent research from the Harvard School of Public Health, a debate has sprung up over whether milk is truly the calcium-loaded necessity it’s been portrayed to be. Sure, drinking milk during infancy is one of the most natural things humans do. However, humans are the only mammals who drink the milk of another species throughout adulthood. This is where things get a little unnatural — at least that’s what Dr. Dana Simpler, a physician in Baltimore, Md., thinks.

“You have to think of milk as a kind of liquid red meat,” Simpler said. “It’s very high in saturated fat, which is a wonderful thing if you’re a calf and you need to grow, but it’s not a good thing for adult humans. As we know, saturated fat is associated with increased rates of heart attacks.”

The trouble doesn’t stop there. Simpler said too much milk is associated with a range of gastrointestinal problems (bloating, diarrhea and more), sinus problems and even cancer.

“Milk was given a calcium niche as an attempt to make it into a health food ,” Simpler said. “If you get your calcium from greens and nuts and vegetables, you don’t get intestinal bloating, you don’t get reflux, you don’t get sinus problems. So, just because milk contains calcium doesn’t mean that all the other problems aren’t there.”

Some health professionals, like New York-based dietitian Nina Eng, say there’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to the possible effects of drinking milk. “Some people can tolerate up to a glass of milk, but beyond that they get symptoms [of lactose-intolerance] — you know, cramping, bloating,” Eng said. “Some people can tolerate yogurt, but they can’t tolerate milk. It varies from person to person.”

Like the USDA, Eng recommends her clients drink milk for a source of calcium, potassium and vitamin D — as long as it’s the low-fat or non-fat variety. “The bottom line is everything in moderation,” Eng said. “Do I think milk should be eliminated? No. Do I think you should drink gallons of it every day? No.”

It’s been about 18 years since the last time natural health practitioner Kathy Gruver had a glass. “I grew up in the ‘70s in Pittsburgh, and everyone I knew drank milk,” Gruver said. She stopped as a young adult, though, because it began to have uncomfortable effects on her body.

Gruver, now a resident of Santa Barbara, Calif., advises her clients on natural health remedies. On occasion, she suggests her clients cut dairy from their diet to see if it brings any results. Gruver has found that health issues — ranging from a child’s ear infection to sinus irritation in adults — often go away once the milk is gone.

“I still know a lot of parents who fully believe that their kids have to drink milk for strong bones, strong teeth and to get vitamins,” she said. “It’s just the norm that’s been set.”

“Got Milk?” defined that norm from 1995 until this year, when the ad campaign changed to the protein-focused “Milk Life.” This new campaign, according to AdAge.com, was possibly prompted by a 1 percent decline in milk sales last year. Other contributing factors may be declining cereal sales and the growing popularity of alternative breakfast options. That being said, the dairy industry has no need to panic — it racked up $14.4 billion in North American sales in 2013. Midwest farmers alone produced 5.6 billion pounds of milk in 2013, which accounted for $1.7 billion in sales, according to Associated Milk Producers, Inc. And those numbers are likely to remain that way for the foreseeable future — or until research proves milk should just be for babies.

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Photo courtsey of Guy Montag

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