W
e have all seen the dairy industry’s adspromoting drinking milk as necessary for the development of strong bones and a healthy body. You can’t miss those athletes with the milk mustaches implying that we can have a perfect body if we ingest a lot of dairy in our diet. In this month’s Natural Way to Health, I will show you that conventional dairy products are not a healthy choice for many of us and that becoming dairy-free can improve many health conditions.
After the birth of my child Hailey I knew enough about dairy to decide not to give her milk after her first birthday. The way my mother and mother-in-law reacted to my and my wife Allison’s decision to not give Hailey milk astounded me. They were not happy. I remember them saying, “How will she grow strong bones?” and “What about her teeth? Don’t all children need milk?” I informed them that my children will grow appropriately and be healthy without drinking milk.
Now, having one mother unhappy with you is one thing; having both mothers unhappy is not advisable. However, over the years, due to my recommendations, both mothers eliminated dairy from their own diets — and their health improved. (More about the mothers later.)
Now Hailey and her sister Jessi (also not given milk after her first birthday) are teenagers. They both are active in school sports and have developed into normal, healthy, and occasionally moody (please, help me with this one) teenagers with strong bones and good teeth.
The fact is, there are many falsehoods about dairy
intake. That’s because the dairy industry has had a good marketing campaign to convince all Americans that in order to be healthy we need to ingest dairy foods. This is simply not true. My testing has shown that more than 80 percent of people may be reacting negatively to dairy. People who react poorly to dairy would do best to avoid it completely.
So, what is milk? It is a substance secreted by the mammary glands of female mammals. It is necessary for the nourishment of their young; that is, milk is species-specific. This means that, as a food, it is designed perfectly for each species’ own offspring. Milk has all the ingredients for the young of that mother to grow into a healthy mammal.
We all know that different types of milk are available commercially. This includes cow’s milk, goat’s milk, camel, water buffalo, and sheep’s milk. Since cow’s milk is so widely ingested in the United
Dr. David Brownstein’s
November 2009 Vol. 2, Issue 11
N
atural
Achieving & Maintaining Your Optimal Health
W
a y to
H
ealth
Exposing the Dairy Myth:
The Truth About Milk and Your Health
In This Issue . . .
4Problems With Pasteurization ...2
4The Dangers of Factory Farming ...3
4Hope for Fibromyalgia Sufferers ...4
4In the News: Ask Before a CT Scan ...6
4How to Know Whether You Have Milk Allergy ...7
4 Is Dairy Bad for Everyone? ...7
States, whenever I refer to milk, I am referring to cow’s milk. Any other species’ milk will be designated as such.
Humans are the only species known to drink another mammal’s milk. In fact, animal milk is first known to have been used as human food at the beginning of domestication thousands of years ago. Cattle’s milk was first used for human food in the Middle East. In 7,000 BC, cattle were being herded in Turkey. It is assumed that man was consuming cow’s milk during this period.
So, if cow’s milk has been around for millennia, how could I be correct? Maybe cow’s milk is a healthy food that should be ingested. That is certainly a reasonable argument to make. My clinical experience, however, has shown otherwise.
Problems With
Pasteurization
Pasteurization of food was developed to slow microbial growth. It is a process named after the French chemist Louis Pasteur. He and Claude Bernard completed the first pasteurization process in 1862. It was designed to prevent wine and beer from souring. In other words, pasteurization was introduced to decrease the bacterial content of food.
But does pasteurization kill all of the microbes in food? The answer is no. It is well known that heat-resistant pathogens are able to survive pasteurization in large numbers. In milk, Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis is one such microbe. Researchers have shown that patients with Crohn’s disease are found to have a significantly higher prevalence of this microbe in their gut tissues compared with patients without Crohn’s disease.1
My testing has found 100 percent of patients with Crohn’s disease are sensitive to a protein (casein) in dairy. In fact, I routinely tell my patients with colitis
(such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis) to go dairy-free. It is rare not to see their disease subside after a two-month trial of a dairy-free diet.
The problem with pasteurization is that it not only kills microbes in food but also destroys nutrients the food contains. The nutrients lost or altered in pasteurization include vitamins A, B6, B12, C, and D, fatty acids, and minerals.
In the case of milk, pasteurization destroys the naturally occurring enzymes that aid in its digestion. These enzymes are heat-sensitive proteins. This enzymatic destruction is at the forefront of why so many people have difficulties ingesting dairy products.
You would think that the pasteurization of milk was a good thing to implement to decrease the number of infections that developed from ingesting milk. However, the evidence does not support this idea. Milk itself is not a dirty substance. A well-fed and well-cared-for cow will secrete healthy milk that is an ideal food source for growing a baby cow. This “clean” milk can be ingested by humans and can be used to make other dairy-based products, including cheese and yogurt. More than 100 years ago (and much further back in time), humans were ingesting milk that was not pasteurized and there were no epidemics due to contaminated milk.
The industrialization of milk, however, introduced new sources of problems for dairy cattle and
potentially newer sources of infection to people who ingested the product. Pasteurization allowed producers to become less vigilant on maintaining a healthy herd.
Even if there was an infection in the milk, the producer counted on pasteurization to kill the infection. Before the industrialization of dairy farms, milk was supplied by a local farmer to the population that lived near the farm. Now, milk is
2 November 2009
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supplied by large, often unsanitary factory farms and shipped great distances.
The Dangers of
Factory Farming
Factory farming is used to raise animals on an extremely large scale to get the highest output and the lowest cost per animal. No concern is given to the animals’ welfare, sanitation, environmental impact, or the health consequences. In the case of cows, they essentially are treated with many synthetic substances, including hormones, antibiotics, and antimicrobials to maximize the production of the food product.
The cows often never go outside, do not graze on grass, nor even see sunlight. They are confined indoors, often in quite unsanitary facilities. Needless to say, animals treated in this inhumane way will produce food that is inferior to animals that are treated appropriately.
In the case of factory farms, cattle are forced to produce beyond their limits and pumped with hormones to increase production levels abnormally. The cattle have such poor health that they need to be treated continually with antibiotics. Therefore, milk obtained from these cattle will be contaminated with those antibiotics and hormones. By far, most of the milk and dairy-based products available in grocery stores comes from factory farmed cattle.
In order to maximize production of milk, cows are confined and continually hooked up to milking machines. These cows are expected to produce 50 pounds of milk per day, more than four times what they would naturally produce.
How do these cows produce so much milk? They are given shots of bovine growth hormone in order to increase their production. Traces of this hormone injection are found in the end products sold to consumers.
There is a 25 percent increase in mastitis (infection of the mammary gland) in cows injected with bovine growth hormone.2 Mastitis necessitates
the excessive use of antibiotics in feed. The impact of this overuse of antibiotics in cattle has caused humans to develop resistant strains of bacteria and viruses as a result of consuming dairy products.
In fact, there is antibiotic residue in the food sources of animals treated with antibiotics. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, approximately 70 percent of all antibiotics used in the United States are fed to farm animals for non-therapeutic purposes.3 Cows repeatedly stimulated
with bovine growth hormone exhibit many of the signs of excess stress. If you are going to drink milk or ingest dairy-based products, it is important to ingest products free of bovine growth hormone.
It would seem easy to purchase a dairy product that does not contain bovine growth hormone, right? You should be able to read the label on the product and choose a product not manufactured with the hormone.
Of course, that would be too easy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has made it illegal to label a dairy product as bovine growth hormone-free. Monsanto, the manufacturer of bovine growth hormone, successfully lobbied the FDA to prevent manufacturers from labeling their product as bovine growth hormone-free under the guise that it was a restraint of trade. Thank goodness the FDA is looking out for Monsanto!
Monsanto was worried that informed consumers would (rightly) choose products that were growth hormone-free over products that contained bovine growth hormone. Hence, in order to prevent a decline in the use of the hormone in cattle, the FDA will not allow labeling of milk products to claim
November 2009 3
Continued on page 5
David Brownstein, M.D., is a
board-certified family physician and one of the foremost practitioners of holis-tic medicine. Dr. Brownstein has lec-tured internationally to physicians and others about his success with natural hormones and nutritional therapies in his practice. His books include Drugs That Don’t Work and
Natural Therapies That Do!; Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can’t Live Without It; Salt Your Way To Health; The Miracle of Natu-ral Hormones; Overcoming Arthritis, Overcoming Thyroid Disorders; The Guide to a Gluten-Free Diet; The Guide to Healthy Eating; and The Guide to a Dairy-Free Diet. He is the medical director of the
Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Mich., where he lives with his wife, Allison, and their teenage daughters, Hailey and Jessica. For more information about Dr. Brownstein, please go to his Web site at www.drbrownstein.com.
4 November 2009
Hope and Health for the Mystery of Fibromyalgia
In each issue, I will share with you the story of one of my patients and how sometimes simple alternative approaches can solve major health problems. Names and some details have been changed for privacy’s sake, but the problems and their resolutions are real.
— Dr. David Brownstein Janice, 40, is a runner. She liked to run marathons. “I have been running marathons since I was 20 years old. The time I feel the best is when I am running,” she said.
Yet Janice complained of not feeling well for 13 years. “After the birth of my child, I was never the same. I began to get stomach pains and bloating. I never felt comfortable,” she said. Janice would struggle through periods of constipation and diarrhea. “I am now almost afraid to eat anything. I have no idea how I am going to react. Sometimes, I just take one bite of something and boom, my stomach looks like I am five months pregnant.”
Janice was able to continue running until two years ago, when she started to become fatigued. Janice was also upset about gaining weight. “Two years ago, I began to gain weight for no reason. I eat healthy and exercise all the time. I am so frustrated by this weight gain. I don’t know what to do,” she said. She was having irregular menstrual periods, sometimes two per month. “My periods have been getting worse and worse. I can’t stand the cramps and the bleeding just seems to increase. I want a new body,” she told me.
As part of my initial evaluation, I asked Janice detailed questions about her diet. She was drinking two glasses of water a day, two cups of tea a day sweetened with NutraSweet, and two diet sodas a day. Her diet consisted of toast and cold cereal for breakfast, then pasta and salad for lunch and dinner. For snacks, Janice would eat cheese.
Janice looked pale. She had dark circles under her eyes (also known as allergic shiners). Her conjunctivae (the sacs under her eyes) were pale. She had poor muscle tone and her skin felt dehydrated. Her muscles were tender at trigger points throughout her neck and back.
After the physical exam, I drew blood. He tests showed that she had low iron levels (ferritin was 33 ng/ml with optimal levels around 100 ng/ml). She had low sodium (137 mmol/L with optimal levels around 141 mmol/L). Janice’s protein status was low at 6.7 g/dL with optimal levels above 7 g/dL. I also found her to be low in vitamin B12 at 372 pg/ml with optimal levels greater than 500 pg/ ml. Finally, she had lowered iodine levels.
Janice’s condition is common. I see a lot of patients, many of them women, complaining of fatigue, weight
gain, and muscle pain. I diagnosed her with fibromyalgia, a condition characterized by chronic widespread pain and an exaggerated response to touch. Fatigue, sleep disturbance, and joint stiffness are often present. Many doctors do not consider fibromyalgia a real illness; I have seen enough patients to believe in its existence.
Many patients with fibromyalgia complain of a “brain fog” feeling. I have seen many patients disabled by it. It can totally disrupt not only the patient’s life but also the patient’s family life.
There is not one single known cause of fibromyalgia and most conventional physicians do not know how to treat it. They rely on antidepressants, seizure medications, or anxiety drugs. Most of the time, these therapies are not only ineffective but counterproductive.
I look at it as a pie; there are different pieces (or causes for fibromyalgia) of the pie. The more causes you address, the better the patient will do.
There are some similarities with most fibromyalgia patients: Almost all have nutrient deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, and toxicities. When addressed, the vast majority of patients improve.
‘I Feel the Fog Lifting’
In Janice’s case, she had low iron levels. Ensuring adequate iron levels is crucial to treating a fibromyalgia patient. Iron carries oxygen to the tissues of the body. I placed Janice on a herbal iron preparation (Fe-Zyme from Biotics Research). Adequate salt intake also helps. It improves adrenal function, which is frequently damaged by fibromyalgia. I asked Janice to use Celtic Brand Sea Salt (an unrefined sea salt) at 1.5 tsp/day.
Diet changes are a must. I told Janice that she was not getting enough protein. I advised her to change her diet to a higher-protein, lower-carbohydrate diet (and to eat low-glycemic carbohydrates). I also told her to drink more water (about two liters per day) and take B12 shots.
Within two weeks she was doing better. “I began to feel the fog lifting,” she said. At a two-month follow up, Janice was starting to walk and work out again. She reported to me that she felt 50 percent better. At a four-month visit, she told me she was more than 90 percent better. She was very excited to tell me that she was going to start training for marathons again.
Janice’s story is far from unique. Fatigue and
fibromyalgia symptoms can be treated in the vast majority of patients. Doing the basics — drinking water and eating better — helps nearly every condition.
it is free of bovine growth hormone. Yet, the FDA admits that growth hormones have been its largest consumer food-safety controversy.
If this story seems crazy to you, I encourage you to share your feelings with the FDA. (Contact it at www.fda.gov.) My professional opinion is that bovine growth hormone should be limited to short-statured cows that have a medical need for it. It certainly does not belong in dairy products our children drink.
Allergy to cow’s milk is one of the most common allergies known. Reports are that 2 percent to 3 percent of children are allergic, with higher numbers for adults. I can tell you, beyond a doubt, that the real numbers are much, much higher. My experience has shown that up to half of all children and more than 80 percent of adults exhibit antibodies to a protein in milk called casein.
Furthermore, when these patients who test positive for casein antibodies avoid dairy, I find that their health generally improves.
Casein is a protein found in milk as well as milk products such as butter, yogurt, cheese, creamed soups, cream, half-and-half, sour cream, and ice cream.
Casein also can be found in less-obvious food products, including spreads and dressings. Interestingly, it also can be found in many prescription drugs and in chewing gum.
Casein can cause issues for people with leaky gut or gastrointestinal issues, such as enzyme
deficiencies. In this case, the casein proteins (similarly to gluten proteins) go undigested into the blood stream and can cause changes in both mood and brain function.
November 2009 5
Continued from page 3
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6 November 2009
In the News: Reading Between the Medical Headlines
Ask Your Doctor Before a CT Scan
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that at least 4 million Americans under age 65 are exposed to high doses of radiation each year from medical imaging tests.1
Approximately 400,000 of those patients receive high doses of ionizing radiation, more than the maximum allowed for anyone who works with nuclear material.
An article about this study in the Aug. 27 New York Times estimated that this amount of ionizing radiation would result in tens of thousands of additional cancers.
Radiation has been shown to cause damage to the DNA of the cells. If this DNA is not repaired, cancer can result. What can you do?
Number one, before
undergoing an imaging test that uses a large amount of ionizing radiation — such as a CT scan — make sure it is necessary.
There is a time and a place for a CT scan. However, I try to minimize my patients’ exposure to ionizing radiation. Ask your doctor whether he has a financial interest in the place he is sending you for your radiological test.
I suggest seeking a second opinion if something does not seem quite right.
Second Thoughts on Flu Shots
By now, everybody is familiar with the swine flu that is expected to infect a large number of people worldwide this fall. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is recommending that nearly
everybody receive the new vaccine that is specific for the influenza A (H1N1) virus.
In fact, the CDC is
recommending five target groups of individuals to be vaccinated.
The groups include pregnant women; persons who live with or provide care for infants younger than 6 months; children and young adults aged 6 months to 24 years; people ages 25 to 64 years who have medical conditions that put them at higher risk for influenza-related complications; and healthcare personnel.
Most people who have become ill with this strain of influenza have been between the ages of 5 and 24.
This vaccine has the potential to become a disaster. The previous swine flu vaccine given in the United States in the 1970s resulted in more than 500 cases of a serious neurologic disorder known as Guillain-Barré paralysis and 25 deaths. These problems were not the result of the flu but of the vaccine itself.
The present-day swine flu virus has been rushed into production. My recommendations are to avoid the vaccine and take the proper precautions to prevent the flu.
These precautions include taking vitamin C, iodine and vitamin D. It is best to work with a healthcare practitioner knowledgeable about these natural items before taking them. Dangerous Chemicals
in Your Fast Food
There is no question that an obesity epidemic is afflicting the United States. Nearly two out of three people are overweight and one out of three adults is obese. I have no doubt that the main reason there is so much obesity in the United States is largely because of lifestyle choices. In
particular, Americans eat too much poor quality fast food.
What is an example of poor quality food? Unfortunately, we have much to talk about here. Let me tell you about a recent study from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).
The researchers went to six Kentucky Fried Chicken stores and obtained two samples of grilled chicken from each store.
KFC was advertising its grilled chicken as “the better-for-you chicken for health-conscious consumers.” Tests sent to an independent laboratory found that every piece of grilled chicken contained PhIP, which is a chemical that has been shown to increase cancer risk.
There are no safe levels of PhIP consumption. Grilled chicken is the largest source of PhIP. It can be found on all meats that are grilled. Pan frying and barbecuing also can cause PhIPs to form on meat products. They are produced by long cooking times and high temperatures.
The committee is suing KFC for not informing consumers of PhIP contamination in its products. KFC is not the only restaurant with this problem.
PCRM also filed suit against McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Chili’s, T.G.I.Fridays, Outback Steakhouse, Burger King, and Applebee’s for knowingly exposing consumers to PhIP without warning them of the risk.
Only Burger King has posted warnings to its customers that its grilled chicken products contain PhIP. The other restaurants are fighting the lawsuit.
RefeReNces
How to Know Whether
You Have a Milk Allergy
A milk allergy can manifest in many different ways. The most common symptoms are
gastrointestinal problems, including diarrhea, bloating, gassiness, and constipation. However, there are many other symptoms related to dairy problems, including asthma, autism, behavioral issues, headaches, chest pains, dry skin, hives, rashes, stuffy nose, runny nose, and sneezing. Keep in mind, if you eat dairy and nothing happens right away, this does not mean you are not allergic to milk. I have found the majority of food allergy reactions may take hours or even days to occur.
A simple blood test checking for casein antibodies may provide some information on your allergy potential to dairy. Although this test is not 100 percent sensitive, it does provide helpful information.
I frequently have recommended a trial of dairy-free for many people who are suffering a wide range of allergic (as well as other, chronic) problems.
Let’s get back to my mom. Ruth, my mother, complained of irritable bowel symptoms as I was growing up. I remember we always had a heating pad out for my mother to use on her stomach. She was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome many years ago. For the last 18 years (after I became a holistic doctor) I told my mother to get dairy out of her diet.
My experience with treating hundreds of patients diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome is that the vast majority of these patients have a dairy sensitivity and will do markedly better with their symptoms by avoiding dairy.
My mother did not believe me. “When my stomach is upset, a glass of milk soothes it. I have been using milk to help my stomach for 50 years,” she said. My mother and I never saw eye-to-eye on dairy. I remember as a child she always wanted me to drink my milk. I never liked drinking milk, even then.
After becoming a holistic doctor, I learned about the problems with conventional milk products and I removed dairy from my diet. My chronic asthma symptoms promptly improved and my chronically
stuffy nose went away. You can rest assured that I made sure to tell my mother how much better I was doing off of dairy.
I was getting frequent phone calls from my mom about a year ago complaining about her stomach issues. In desperation, I checked her casein antibody levels. Her levels were markedly high. I showed her the results and she asked, “Do you think I should avoid dairy products?” I reminded her that I had been telling her this for nearly two decades! The results of this blood test prompted Ruth’s decision to become dairy-free for six weeks.
Within a month, all of her stomach problems evaporated. Now, when she inadvertently ingests dairy, her irritable bowel symptoms come roaring back. “I really thought the milk settled my stomach. It is hard for me to believe that it was hurting me all of these years,” she said.
Is Dairy Bad
for Everyone?
The answer to this question is “not necessarily.” But conventional dairy products, which contain synthetic hormones and antibiotics, should be avoided. If you are going to ingest dairy, it is best to use dairy from organically raised cows. No dairy product should have bovine growth hormone in it. Also, many people can tolerate fermented milk products in the form of yogurt or kefir much better than milk itself.
What about raw milk? Fresh, raw milk from a farmer you know and trust may be an option for some people. Having said that, I still say that even raw cow’s milk is designed for raising a healthy baby cow — not humans. I do not feel that people should be ingesting another species’ milk as a primary source of protein in their diet.
More information about milk and becoming dairy-free can be found in my book, The Guide to
a Dairy-Free Diet (www.drbrownstein.com).
November 2009 7
Continued from page 5
RefeReNces
1 Gut. 2005.54:966-949
2 “Report of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association Expert Panel on rBST,” (Executive Summary) Health Canada, November, 1998 3 Union of Concerned Scientists. Hogging It!: Estimates of Antimicrobial
8 November 2009
Ask Dr. Brownstein
My compounding pharmacies are not able to obtain the smaller doses of Armour Thyroid (30 and 60 mg). They are having to cut the 120 mg tablets, which is not an easy task. I also recently read online comments by patients on Armour saying that the original formulation has been changed. What exactly is going on?
— Marelyn M. (M.D.), McAllen, Texas
I have been following the situation closely and trying to sort through the mess. Here is how I see it: Natural, desiccated thyroid hormone (NDT) comes in different brands, including Armour Thyroid, Nature-Throid, and Westhroid.
The problem began nearly a year ago, when the supplier of raw thyroid changed its manufacturing process.
This caused both major manufacturers of desiccated thyroid, Forest (Armour Thyroid) and RLC Labs (Nature-Throid and Westhroid) to have problems with their manufacturing process. This started the first wave of desiccated thyroid shortages.
After this problem was rectified, Forest decided to alter the formula for Armour Thyroid. This alteration caused a lot of patient problems as the drug was not having the same beneficial effect as before. I had many patients report a sudden decrease
in effectiveness with the “new” form of Armour Thyroid.
The next problem began when Forest
Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Armour Thyroid, recalled a large portion of its thyroid doses because of stability concerns and back-ordered all of its strengths. Forest is the largest manufacturer of NDT. This created an immediate nationwide shortage.
At this point, I was hearing from my patients who were rightfully concerned about being able to get their prescription.
I was prescribing Armour thyroid as well as RLC Labs Nature-Throid and Westhroid to my patients. I spoke to RLC Labs, where a representative told me, “RLC is in for the long run. We are fully committed to stand behind our product and supply patients with a quality product. We will see this through.”
Right now, I suggest that those patients who use Armour Thyroid try RLC Labs Nature-Throid or Westhroid. I have used these products for years.
In fact, with the recent formulation change by Armour, I have been switching many of my patients to Nature-Throid. I personally have found it a very good product for my own thyroid condition.
If Nature-Throid or Westhroid are not available, a compounding pharmacist can fill your desiccated thyroid hormone needs temporarily.
Finally, ensure that you have adequate iodine intake. I have found much fewer problems switching between thyroid medications when iodine levels are maintained at optimal levels.
Dear Readers,
I will try to answer as many questions as I can. However, because of the volume of questions, I cannot answer each letter personally. Please include your full name, city, and state when submitting. If you have a question for me, please e-mail it to: askdrdavid@newsmax.com.
To your good health,
Please note: All information presented in Dr. David Brownstein’s Natural Way to Health is for informational purposes only. It is not specific medical advice for any individual. All answers to reader questions are provided for informational purposes only. All information presented in Dr. David Brownstein’s Natural Way to Health should not be construed as medical consultation or instruction. You should take no action solely on the basis of this publication’s contents. Readers are advised to consult a health professional about any issue regarding their health and well-being. While the information found in Dr. David Brownstein’s Natural Way to Health is believed to be sensible and accurate based on the author’s best judgment, readers who fail to seek counsel from appropriate health professionals assume risk of any potential ill effects. The opinions expressed in Dr. David Brownstein’s Natural Way to Health do not necessarily reflect those of Newsmax Media.
