What Is the Problem with Dairy?

Source:  USDA

As those of you that read often know we eat this way for health. For the majority of my life I was omnivore and sometimes vegetarian. My vegetarian phases never lasted for long (until now) because it was too much trouble making multiple meals. Now that both my husband and I eat this way we are committed to this lifestyle.

I get many questions from people about why we have eliminated dairy. They seem to be under the impression that meat is the problem but dairy is fine. This really couldn’t be farther from the truth. Since I get so many email questions about this I wanted to write something for the blog for everyone.

For those of you that still eat dairy I wanted to share what I have learned about the problems with consuming it. Before you say to yourself that you don’t have cancer so it doesn’t matter please remember the statistics. At last count 42% of us will battle cancer sometime in our lives. It typically takes years for cancer to grow. If we can make dietary changes now maybe we can prevent cancer from being able to grow in the first place. It is much better to prevent cancer rather than to try to treat it once it has been able to grow.

1. Most dairy is high in cholesterol which is very bad for everyone but particularly for people with cancer. High serum cholesterol is associated with more deadly metastases. Conversely low cholesterol is associated with improved patient outcomes. This is a reason to not only eliminate dairy, but all animal products.

2. Consuming dairy is associated with higher levels of estradiol. This particular hormone stimulates tumor growth in quite a few cancer lines, typically the hormonally dependent ones.

3. Milk contains lactose which tends to raise blood sugar. If you have cancer you don’t want to increase your blood sugar. Cancer is a sugar feeder. Anything you can do to keep it from feeding is a good thing.

4. Milk is made up of two types of protein, 80% casein and 20% whey. Casein has been shown to accelerate the growth of tumors in lab experiments. Whey protein has been shown to inhibit cancer (again in lab experiments) but it comes with the casein or isolated (which has its own problems). Non-fat Greek yogurt which I used to love is also a problem. Greek yogurt is made by straining regular yogurt, which removes much of the whey. This was one of those facts that really angered me. We ate home made non-fat Greek yogurt for breakfast for decades with fresh fruit and thought we were eating healthy. So much for that theory. If I known years ago that dairy was so potentially harmful it would not have been in our house. Don’t be fooled by the people that tell you that non-fat Greek yogurt is healthy because it is non-fat that is just so much bull.

5. The purpose of dairy milk is to feed little cows. Milk naturally contains compounds that stimulate growth, like insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). These growth factors also stimulate tumor growth. High dairy consumption is liked to poorer survival of patients with many types of cancer.

I could go on about the problems with dairy for pages. But I will stop here so that you can digest the information. The information above comes from a number of sources but primarily from “Life Over Cancer” by Keith I. Block, MD. In anyone reading this has a family member who had or has cancer I highly recommend this book. It is my bible when it comes to anything cancer related. The doctor does a great job of packing decades of work and research into 500+ pages of text.  Much of the science is over my head, but I am slowly learning more about this topic as I do more research.

The bottom line is that you don’t eat dairy, don’t start. If you do, you should know the potential problems with continuing to consume it. I only wish I had known some of this years ago. We would have made changes much sooner.

As always what I have written is my summary of what I have read on the subject.  Please do your own research and check with your doctor before making changes.