Message in a bottle

It’s ubiquitous and sold as the next best thing to mother’s love and apple
pie. But just what’s in your daily pinta? Dr Justine Butler investigates
e are a nation of milk drinkers and most infants, So what nutritional value does it have? The science is

W children, adults and old people consume large

quantities. It is used to produce cheese, butter and
yogurt and is made into thousands of products and if you
conflicting, with some reports suggesting it is beneficial but
an increasing amount of evidence now links cow’s milk to a
whole range of health problems, including some of the UK’s
criticise it, your sanity is questioned. But is milk really a big killers such as heart disease, obesity, type 1 diabetes,
wonder food or is it doing us more harm than good? breast cancer and prostate cancer. Milk and dairy products
are also linked to Crohn’s disease, osteoporosis, childhood
Milk is the first food we consume – our mother’s if we’re allergies – especially eczema – and even teenage acne.
fortunate. It’s a wholesome part of the diet associated with
comfort and nurturing but while all other mammals are weaned The main carbohydrate in milk is a sugar called lactose,
off milk early in life, most humans in the West continue drinking which needs to be broken down in the intestines by an
it and not just that, the milk of a different species – cows. enzyme called lactase before it can be digested. Most infants
can digest lactose but only until they’re weaned, after which
they become ‘lactose intolerant’.This applies to most
people in the world, with almost 100 per cent of Asians
being lactose intolerant, 65-70 per cent of Africans, but just
10 per cent of Caucasians (1). It follows that on a global
scale, not drinking milk is the norm.

There are big differences between human milk and cow’s

milk, not least in the protein content – cow’s milk
containing more than twice as much as human milk and of a
very different type.

Milk from both species contains casein and whey proteins

but in human milk the ratio is 40:60 while in cow’s milk it is
80:20. So there is much more casein in cow’s milk and its
extremely tough – so tough it was traditionally used to make
furniture glue! Not surprisingly, it can be difficult to digest
and is the most common source of food allergy in children.

One of the reactions can be intestinal bleeding, with a

considerable amount of iron being lost with the blood (2).
Frank Oski, former paediatrics director at Johns Hopkins
School of Medicine, estimates that this allergic reaction
causes half the cases of iron-deficiency anaemia in US
infants (3).This is a staggering figure considering that over
15 per cent of infants under two suffer from the condition.

There is also convincing research showing that drinking cow’s

milk in infancy and adolescence – and this includes cow’s milk
infant formula – may be a trigger for type 1 diabetes in some
people (4, 5). It is thought that casein and other molecules
trigger a kind of chain reaction that ends with the destruction
of cells in the pancreas – the cells that produce insulin.

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 message in a bottle
It’s glaringly obvious that the type of milk an animal produces calves. Just like us, cows don’t produce milk unless they’ve
reflects the nutritional needs of its babies. In human babies, recently given birth. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated
the brain develops rapidly, tripling in size by the age of one every year and their pregnancy lasts nine months.Two days
and the high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in after birth, the new-born calf is taken from his or her
human milk are responsible. Cow’s milk contains fewer mother and her milk is taken for human consumption.
PUFAs than human milk because rapid growth in body size is
more important for cows than brain development – hence the Within two months of giving birth she is impregnated again
higher levels of body-building saturated fats in cow’s milk. yet milking continues until the last two months of pregnancy.
So, for seven months, she is lactating and nurturing a
What saturated fats do to humans is increase cholesterol growing calf inside her.This cycle continues until she is worn
levels, which in turn increase the risk of heart disease and out, at around three pregnancies, and killed.
strokes by building up fatty deposits known as plaques in
the arteries.Whole milk, butter, cheese, cream and ice- All milk contains hormones and growth factors and the
cream all contain high levels of saturated fat, which are also level in a dairy cow varies hugely, depending upon whether
linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes. she is pregnant or not and the stage of the pregnancy. At
least two-thirds of all cow’s milk in the UK comes from
It also follows that the vitamin and mineral content of cow’s pregnant animals (11) and is causing particular concern to
milk is out of balance for humans – its four times greater some researchers because of its oestrogen content (12).The
calcium content is designed to fuel the rapid growth of a likelihood is that cow’s milk is one of the major sources of
calf’s skeleton.The fact that humans don’t absorb calcium oestrogens in humans.
from milk as well as they do the calcium in plant foods is an
indication of what we should be eating (6). The second big concern is over something called ‘insulin-like
growth factor 1’ (IGF-1) which occurs naturally in the blood of
Cow’s milk contains very little iron, which is one of the reasons both cows and humans and particularly in their milk. It has
why it is seen as unsuitable for infants.A one-year-old who been linked to several cancers.The concern is that its
wanted to meet the Government’s recommended daily intake molecules may not be broken down during pasteurisation or
of 5.3mg of iron would have to drink 30 pints of the stuff. digestion, pass through the intestinal wall and be absorbed into
the blood. It’s known that this happens with another, different
Cow’s milk is also low in vitamin C and vitamin D (7) and growth factor (13) and is likely to be the same with IGF-1.
contains less vitamin A than human milk.The high protein,
sodium, potassium, phosphorus and chloride content of The outcome could be that on entering the blood, cow’s
cow’s milk can place a strain on immature kidneys, forcing milk IGF-1 adds to and increases the body’s normal level.
them to draw water from the body and so increasing the Because it regulates cell growth and division the fear is that
risk of dehydration. it may cause human breast cancer cells to grow – which is
what has happened in laboratory studies. Even a small
It gets worse! The modern dairy cow is prone to stress and increase in levels of IGF-1 in the blood is linked to a higher
disease, with mastitis – an inflammation of the mammary risk of prostate, breast, colon and lung cancer (14).
glands – affecting 50 per cent of cows every year (8). In
response to the infection, the cow’s immune system Studies have shown that IGF-1 levels are higher in people who
produces somatic (pus) cells which are then excreted in the consume milk and dairy products (15, 16, 17) and one of
milk – the milk people drink! EU regulations allow a them actually put some figures on it. Increasing the amount of
maximum limit of 400 million somatic cells per litre of cow’s milk drunk from 200 to 600ml a day produced a
milk (9). So one teaspoonful of milk could contain up to massive 30 per cent increase in IGF-1 in the blood (18).
two million pus cells!
What isn’t yet clear is whether this increase is caused
There has been a growing trend for low-fat milk and dairy directly by cow’s milk IGF-1 crossing the gut wall or for
products for supposed health reasons but this type of milk is other reasons.Whichever, the research is clear that cow’s
also linked to a range of illnesses and diseases, which milk and dairy products increase levels of IGF-1, which in
suggests that something in milk other than fat is turn increases the risk of various cancers.
responsible.The suspected guilty parties which are
attracting scientific attention are a wide range of so-called Milk is a food that nourishes baby mammals and to do so it
‘bioactive molecules’, which include both hormones and carries signalling molecules made up of hormones and
substances called ‘growth factors’ (10). growth factors.They carry the messages from mother to
infant, directing its immune and other systems, enabling it
Again, it’s important to remember that cow’s milk is from a to grow up healthily. It is for this reason that cow’s milk is
different species and is geared to the nutritional needs of perfect for calves but is not at all suitable for us.

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