Hormones in milk can be dangerous- Harvard reveals the truth about milk | Hacker News Reader

Hormones in milk can be dangerous- Harvard reveals the truth about milk

news.harvard.edu

19 pointsmgh231 comments

This comes to no surprise to our family... just seeing what "regular" milk can do short-term. My cousin's daughter (7 years old) was showing signs of early puberty (B.O., armpit hair). Since switching to "organic" (hormone-free, among other things) milk, the B.O. has disappeared and the hair showing some retreat. ::scary:: YMMV

Are these the hormones that they are talking about? My understanding is that the problems were with hormones that also occur naturally in (organic) milk.

Growth hormones we artificially add to cows are a whole other ballgame. I am not sure why anyone would drink milk from cows that have been artificailly manipulated to increase profit margins. (Oh, but it's $1 cheaper! I get it!)

Often, increasing profit margins means giving the customer what they want. For instance, take a hormone-based manipulation that makes beef leaner. As a result, it'd be tastier and healthier (?), and thus more appealing.

That's not to say that there aren't risks, and that sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits, but to condemn genetic or hormone manipulation on the basis of it being manipulation just seems silly. We don't complain about the use of engineered alloys over "natural" iron.

My own anecdote: while living in the USA, I grew nearly 1 inch, at age 25. I was having cereal with regular milk for breakfast every day for about 6 months.

Well, bovine growth hormone is not human growth hormone, so it's probably something else.

I looked for some peer-reviewed articles about this, and found:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/249/4971/875

But of course, you should still support sustainable agriculture, especially since organic milk is not significantly more expensive than "conventional" milk. (Oh the irony of that term...)

Hmm could it be that higher cancer rates are more related to the higher intake of proteins (milk contains ~30% proteins and too much proteins can increase cancer risk) than to the hormones themselves? The article doesn't really mention any evidence for the latter... Plus am I the only one who can find a gazillion more differences than drinking different amounts of milk between Algeria and Denmark?

The high protein itself is likely a problem, and as T. Colin Campbell's research team has shown, the casein protein found in milk is particularly linked to cancer.

But there are health issues linked to milk besides cancer. For example, it is associated with osteoporosis, and the countries with the highest dairy intake (Finland, Sweden, US, and England) have the highest rate of osteoporosis.

Harvard isn't "revealing the truth" so much as pointing out a few interesting correlations between variables.

This is one of the first reddit-style sensationalist headlines I have seen on Hacker News. The headline must be destroyed.

The site guidelines suggest preferring original headlines to rewritten headlines, and I think flagging this submission will bring the issue to the attention of the site curators.

"If the original title ends with the name of the site, please strip it off, because the site name will be displayed after the link anyway. If the title begins with the site name, you can leave it on if you prefer.

"If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

"You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In general, flagging a submission is the way to get problems looked at.

An actual quotation from the submitted article:

"'We don't know what the larger implications are,' said Ganmaa."

Yes, we don't know yet what the larger implications are. It is interesting to note that cross-sectional epidemiological data show in general that countries where people drink a lot of milk are countries where people enjoy a long lifespan and low morbidity (low disease rates) from most causes. That's food for thought.

It is as appropriate for us to drink cow's milk as it is to drink milk from a horse or rat.

T. Colin Campbell has shown very persuasively that one of the biggest problems with milk consumption is a particular protein it contains, casein. The research described in his book, "The China Study", links casein to cancer.

Also, a convincing resource to many, though at times inflammatory, is Dr. Robert Cohen's site, http://notmilk.com He is the author of "Milk: The Deadly Poison".

It is food for thought. We need to remember that if we don't consume milk, to replace the Vitamin D that it is fortified with (naturally, milk does not contain much Vitamin D, so it has been fortified to help prevent rickets) by adequate sunlight and/or supplementation.

For calcium, eating a healthy diet of enough calories will provide an adequate amount. Also, a low sodium diet has been shown to reduce calcium requirements.

I guess Milk: Slightly more dangerous than you think, but much less dangerous than driving at night, while more accurate, would not sell as well.

> It is as appropriate for us to drink cow's milk as it is to drink milk from a horse or rat.

Nothing wrong with horse milk:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumis

(For that matter, horses themselves are pretty good eating).

In terms of rat's milk, I don't think it would be economically efficient to extract it, although, who knows, maybe you could breed the things to produce a lot of milk.

I am well aware that some cultures do drink milk from other animals, goats being most common, but my point is that to us, drinking cow's milk only appears normal because it has been done traditionally. However, objectively, to our physiology, drinking cow's milk makes as much sense as drinking milk from rats, cats, dogs, horses, etc... we are not baby calves.

Also, the fact that it may be economically efficient to extract sweeteners in the form of refined sugars from corn and sugar cane in no way contributes to an argument that they are not harmful to our health.

Being omnivores, drinking cow's milk makes perfect sense, and is probably more politically acceptable than breeding and keeping women for milking.

Perfect sense hardly appears to be an appropriate description here, when

1) No other animal drinks the milk of another animal. 2) No other animal drinks milk after being weaned.

In nature there is no model for the consumption of milk of another species, after weaning.

Women don't need to be bred for milking, as the only humans that need milk are those that the women themselves have bred, and this is for the first years of life only.

> No other animal drinks the milk of another animal.

No other animal sits around getting involved in fruitless (and off topic) discussions on hacker news, either...

Edit: As for me, I don't like milk much, but I'm a big fan of gelato, and various tasty cheeses.

What does it matter if other species don't do it? We're also the only species to domesticate other species. And that's precisely why some of us can digest lactose into adulthood: our ancestors domesticated cows, and evolved that ability because it provided an advantage.

It sounds like you're parroting PETA/vegan talking points.

Regarding the casein, what do you make of this: "For example, many people are allergic to the casein in milk. It's one of the two most common alleriges, along with gluten. Both casein and gluten are proteins. A normally functioning stomach at the proper pH should completely digest casein."

Source: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/02/sugar-hydrogen...

It's also worth noting that casein is found in lots and lots of other foods. I know several people that have casein allergies, and it is surprising what is made with casein.

One thing they didn't mention that I'm curious about is are there differences in estrogen levels between milk from cows raised without additional hormones (marketed as "hormone-free") versus those raised with additional hormones to produce more milk.

Any peer review of this?

I would love to see these links and correlations. If it's true, I'm screwed because I freaking love ice cream!