With the exception of unsweetened soy milk, most unsweetened almond milk or other nondairy milk substitutes without added sweeteners contain too much salt. And sweetened nondairy milk substitutes raise your blood glucose level so fast, you sometimes wish you had a glass of water instead. So what do you put on your berries or cereal?
Some almond milk cartons say they contain either 180, 170, or 160 mg of sea salt per eight-ounce up. That's way too much for the salt-sensitive person with high blood pressure trying to find a beverage that can be consumed frequently, for example, a quart daily in addition to water.
And other milk substitutes that are not unsweetened may contain a variety of sweeteners that put the drink high on the Glycemic Index, thereby causing rapid surges and spikes in your blood glucose level. But you have a wide choice of nut milks, almond, hazelnut, hemp, and other nuts. There's also nondairy milk substitutes made from oats, rice, and soy. Only the soy variety usually contains no added salt or very little, and when it says unsweetened, it doesn't have cane juice or rice sweeteners added. But how does a person who's salt sensitive find almond milk that's made without added salt or sweeteners?
You'll have to make it yourself. Soak the almonds and put them in a blender. Then strain them through a cheesecloth and refrigerate. They won't last too long in the refrigerator. Your only hope may be to beg the companies to cut the added salt in almond milk. Hemp milk is sweetened and has a higher fat level than almond milk. And soy milk may mess up your thyroid if you're so predisposed to thyroid issues.
Then research whether health-related studies are being performed on ‘milk’ that doesn’t come from an animal, such as rice milk, oat milk, and almond or hazelnut milk. That’s not milk at all, but a non-dairy beverage used in place of milk. What’s the effect on the body, the sugar content, and other nutrients in each beverage?
Who’s studying that particular drink? What’s new? Every decade, new definitive guides are published on many aspects of numerous foods. Is there really a definitive guide in the face of changing research findings about almost all foods studied as regards to effects on human health? It can be an adventure to search answers to these questions using links to research appearing in scientific journals.
It will get you reading more about who's researching what when it comes to nutrition and health. While you're reading, look at the articles at any of the various online preventive medicine sites. You have personalized medicine, predictive medicine, and preventive medicine along with alternative, complementary and integrative medicine fields all working together and sharing information that conventional medicine may just be beginning to be aware of.
How healthy is milk for most people? Cardiologist, Stephen A. Sinatra, M.D. in his 2007 book, Reverse Heart Disease Now, writes (on page 178) "Besides their saturated fat content, meat and dairy are high in methionine, an amino acid precursor to homocysteine. Too much homocysteine is a major promoter of arterial damage. Moreover, the homogenization of milk creates very small compounds that get inside blood vessels, causing inflammation and injury to the vessel walls."
Dr. Sinatra goes on to mention fish for its anti-inflammatory oils. And (on page 181) Sinatra notes, "Actually, there's not much need for milk because you get plenty of calcium from vegetables. A single serving of kale, for instance, contains as much calcium as a glass of milk." He also writes, "Drink water. I can't stress this enough. Eight to ten 8-ounce glasses a day."
One of the most debatable controversies in nutrition today is about the effect of milk on health. Check out the various articles and informational materials at the Weston A. Price Foundation. According to the Weston A. Price Foundation’s site, "Dr. J. C. Annand has written a series of articles in which he has advanced the theory that the increase in the incidence of heart disease was proximately related to the on set of pasteurization of milk."
Different population groups were studied in various parts of the world. His theory is that "the heat process of pasteurization alters the protein found in milk and as a result heated protein is responsible for the large increase in the incidence of heart trouble in citizens of western civilization, during the course of the past generation.”
Dr. Kurt A. Oster also has advanced the theory "that homogenization of milk is proximately related to the atherosclerosis which is so prevalent in citizens in developed countries of the western world." How did his research help to move the theory into mass media so that it is accepted as fact by some health care professionals today? And is it fact or still theory?
Oster's theory and research noted, "The reduction in the size of the fat particles caused by homogenization permits them to be assimilated into the stomach lining in a manner that was not contemplated by nature. When these fat particles along with xanthine oxidase get into the bloodstream the human system sets up a defense mechanism which results in the scarring of arteries."
Can science show this really happens when you compare people that drink raw milk with those that drink pasteurized and homogenized milk? Take into consideration the fact that you have debates or issues related to many ongoing studies of how milk affects the human body.
Before you can take notes on the issue of what type of milk or nondairy beverage is healthy for the human body, you need to look at the most current medical and scientific journal articles from primary and secondary sources. Numerous books on health and nutrition warn people not to drink homogenized milk, and some books ask you not to drink pasteurized milk, even though the heating process kills the TB germs and other microbes in the milk. What should you do in the midst of this debate?
Another issue in the debate is how much antibiotics and growth hormones are put in cow's milk sold to the public?
How does organic milk differ? Does organic, raw, or otherwise differently treated or untreated milk effect human health in different ways? These are questions for debates on nutrition. To begin researching the field for your own reports, papers, projects, documentaries, or debates, look at the campaigns. Should you take sides? Sure, I drink almond milk, but ice cream is big business.
Begin by reading about both sides of the issue to get a perspective on what the controversy or issue actually emphasizes. Remember that “A Campaign for Real Milk” is a project of The Weston A. Price Foundation, PMB 106-380, 4200 Wisconsin Ave, NW, Washington DC 20016.
Also see another link at the Weston A. Price Foundation’s raw milk site where raw milk is compared at the site to pasteurized milk in California. While you’re taking notes, remain unbiased and look at all sides and scientific studies to get a handle on what’s being researched and why. List the pros and the cons, the health effects, and the consumer requirements of a beverage product such as milk. Also read the article at the Foundation's site on the "Socio-Cultural Syndrome of Milk" by anthropologist, H. Leon Abrams, Jr. published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition, Volume 27, Number 4, Winter, 1975 in the Archives of the Weston A. Price Foundation's site. Also see the Journal of Applied Nutrition article on
Thousands of cataract surgeries are performed in Sacramento each year and is the most common surgery done in the USA. But so far, no one is telling any person what to eat or not eat to prevent cataracts from forming, possibly by the build up of galactose from certain foods that are stored in the eyes which may contribute to the formation of cataracts.
If milk and sugar is supposed to cause cataracts, then why is whey protein suggested by some nutritionists to give to senior citizens in order to possibly protect them against getting cataracts in the first place? Do babies raised on breast milk have higher IQs than babies raised on cow's milk?
Milk and cataracts: Any connection?
Yes, according to the utube video, Walter Veith 304 Udderly Amazing 1 of 8 - You Tube. There's also a shorter YouTube video clip, "Dairy Galactose in Milk and Cataracts." This shorter clip explains how galactose raises the risk of developing cataracts as galactose builds up in the body over the years, settling in the eyes as cataracts.
Nutritionists are interested to find out the links between dairy products and cataracts, if any. That's where the research takes you on a path to finding out what happens in the body when you eat certain foods. You see, you can't use the word 'milk' but you can use the word 'dairy' to discuss research and any links. But the dairy industry will fight you if you say anything bad about dairy products.
So how can nutritionists let people know what happens? You can use words such as 'galactose' and glucose or any other enzyme or chemical found in humans and animals or various foods.
Whey protein contains amino acids, according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. See the uTube video, "Dairy Galactose in Milk and Cataracts." There's also a longer lecture online related to this topic. To see the longer lecture, check out the eight segments of the program, Udderly Amazing.
You take a small amount of whey protein in order to increase glutathione levels in your body to fight free radicals. Glutathione also protects your body from toxins, preventing damage and improving excretion of the toxins. People with certain types of cancer, cataracts, diabetes and liver disease tend to have deficiencies of glutathione. The only problem is too much whey protein causes bone loss and kidney problems.
On the other hand, older adults who suffer from osteoporosis, cancer and an impaired immune system could benefit from taking whey protein supplements, notes the University of Michigan Health System. Whey could help support cancer treatment, as well as treat cataracts, diabetes and viral hepatitis, reporrts the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. To read more on this topic, check out the article, Is Whey Protein Powder Beneficial For Seniors? So who do you believe depends on whether the proof is validated by peer reviews. The people who say all milk products are bad because they cause cataracts, the nutritionists who say fermented milk products like yogurt, kefir, and certain cheeses are okay, or the people who say whey that comes from milk is beneficial in small amounts? Too large amounts of protein may cause kidney problems, bone loss, and possibly glaucoma. See the article,
Glutathione is known to be one of the most powerful antioxidants
Unfortunately, it isn't well absorbed into the body when taken orally. Therefore, we must find other supplements which will support the production of glutathione within the cells. One product is N-Acetyl-cysteine which is a compound the body uses to produce glutathione. NAC works especially well when used in conjunction with Garlic. But there are warnings on what it can do such as create kidney or other stones and have other health effects. See the site, "N-Aceytl Cysteine: Side Effects, Interactions."
You can probably find NAC at your health food store. But be careful as some people develop kidney stones from taking N-Acetyl cysteine. Another source of glutathione is found in milk whey. If you don't have a milk sensitivity or allergy you will benefit from whey protein extract which is a strong precursor to glutathione.
See the article on how too much protein powder may raise the risk of developing glaucoma. Check out the article, Glaucoma awareness month: excess protein and glaucoma risk. Also see, Why are more cataracts found in people taking statins? Also check out the articles, "Are too many doctors paid to advocate statin use?" and "Why are more cataracts found in people taking statins?"
You also might want to take a look at the article, "Drug Company Pleads Guilty to Health Fraud," Life Extension magazine, March 2010. The healthy trends are pointing toward nutrition as a first line of treatment or solutions to problems of high cholesterol.
Basically, Sacramentans are looking at micronutrients from Mother Nature to improve nutrition--such as raw food diets for a few weeks or juicing vegetables with deep green, purple, and red colors. Why? They want to avoid cataracts and the side effects of statins that are being reported widely in the mainstream media.
A recent British study eight weeks ago of more than 2 million patients found that those using statins were significantly more likely to suffer cataracts.The five-year study found that for every 10,000 patients on statins, up to 307 more had cataracts than non-statin users. Read the article about the study, "Heart drugs may increase cataract, kidney failure risk," published May 22, 2010 in The Age.
In May, 2010, Life Extension magazine ran an article on statins and cataracts, "Nutritional Strategies for Preventing Age-Related Vision Loss." That article noted that "Millions of Americans are taking so-called 'statin' medications to combat high cholesterol, yet few are aware that these drugs may pose a serious threat to their eye health.
According to that article, "In early research, statin medications led to cataract formation in animals. While human studies have failed to identify a causal link between statin drugs and cataracts, some of the most widely used statins—including Zocor® and Mevacor® –carry warnings that they may contribute to the progression of cataracts."
Check out this article for the footnotes giving the sources of these studies. The footnotes refer readers to Merck circulars ( a product pdf. file) and Zocor shared documents (pdf. file), accessed February 27, 2006.
Also, a recent study from Japan reveals a possible link between cholesterol and cataracts. The researchers found that rats that are genetically susceptible to developing cataracts demonstrate defects in two genes involved in cholesterol synthesis. Cholesterol is required for proper development of the epithelial cells of the eye lens, helping to maintain its transparency.
The decreased availability of cholesterol in these animals may thus contribute to the eye lens becoming opaque. So think about it, if your cholesterol is high, you may get cataracts (if what happens to rats happens to humans). But if you're given statins for your high cholesterol, you also may get cataracts as a side effect of the drug, the study suggests. So where do you turn to? How about foods and nutrition?
Another study released yesterday links depression and anxiety to statins. According to a July 1, 2010 article, "Studies link anti-cholesterol statin drugs to increased risk of anxiety and depression," scientists are reporting a possible explanation for the symptoms of anxiety and depression that occur in some patients taking the popular statin family of anti-cholesterol drugs, and reported by some individuals on low-cholesterol diets. These symptoms could result from long-term, low levels of cholesterol in the brain, the report suggests. It appears in ACS' weekly journal Biochemistry.
Amitabha Chattopadhyay and colleagues, according to that article, note in the study that statins "work by blocking a key enzyme involved in the body's production of cholesterol. Some studies link the drugs to an increased risk of anxiety and depression, but the reasons are unclear."
As reported in that article also, the scientists previously showed that maintaining normal cholesterol levels is important for the function of cell receptors for serotonin, a brain hormone that influences mood and behavior. But the long-term effect of cholesterol depletion on these receptors, which can occur in patients taking anti-cholesterol drugs, is unknown.
So why would you take a drug where the outcome is unknown if your doctor tells you to take this drug long-term? Wouldn't you want a second or third opinion before making a choice?
In the study, the article reports that the scientists turned to the statin medication mevastatin to find out. In lab tests using human serotonin receptors expressed in animal cells, they showed that long-term use of the drug caused significant changes in the structure and function of serotonin cell receptors, according to that article.
Adding cholesterol to cells treated with mevastatin restored them to normal. The results represent the first report describing the effect of long-term cholesterol depletion on this type of cell receptor.
Three major articles on what statins don't do appeared in the last three days, two articles on June 28, 2010 and one on July 1, 2010. See, "Studies link anti-cholesterol statin drugs to increased risk of anxiety and depression," published July 1, 2010 in The Medical News.
Patients and consumers in general wonder whether doctors who don't prescribe drugs, but use nutrition and certain supplements instead, usually make patients pay out of pocket because the doctors can't get insurance based on nutritional solutions or treatments using food-based products such as vitamins or minerals?
These are questions patients have about the decision to go with statins. Patients have to decide as a first line of treatment whether to go with food as medicine without being called a quack follower--unless of course, you work with licensed dietitians with R.D. certification or nutritionists and naturopaths with M.D. or D.O. degrees who really know their food biochemistry.
Basically, disputes almost always are about following the big money. And when it comes down to statins or any other drug, the lawyers are waiting in the wings for symptoms to show up. So what's the latest statins dispute about? The answer is the reputation of drugs. How are the various media handling news of the statins studies?
The dispute in the latest news concerns statins, the cholesterol-lowering prescription drugs that earn about $26 billion a year for their makers. Basically, news articles and medical studies in scientific journals are pummeling the reputation of the widely prescribed medications in one area even as it advanced their stature in another.
A meta-analysis — a review of previous studies — published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that statins do not lower death rates among patients with risk factors but no evidence of established cardiovascular disease who take them as a preventive measure, according to the Los Angeles Times article.
Are studies telling doctors or patients that the risk outweighs the benefits, or are they saying that for average risk patients, simply that the drugs don't lower death rates. What do studies say the drugs actually do? The studies are filtered through the eyes of mass media mainstream newspapers.
Who's telling the truth--newspapers or drug manufacturers? That's the question. Answer: follow the money to see who has more to lose by a tarnished reputation--the medicine manufacturers, the media, or nutritionists that tout using food as your medicine.
The drugs' makers don't like their reputation hacked by the press or in medical journals by their own prescribers, physicians and the scientists who study prescription drugs. The Los Angeles Times article mentioned that three-quarters of statin users take statins in hopes of averting a first heart attack or stroke. But if statins don't lower death rates if you have a risk factor but no heart disease, what do they do for you?
At the same time, a study in the journal Cancer suggests that for men who have undergone surgery for prostate cancer, statin use appears to reduce the chance that the disease will return, according to news articles on the web.
Maybe it's time to look more closely at nutritional-oriented changes. The biggest problem is with what doctors are being told and sold. Are too many doctors tightly controlled by the pharmaceutical industry?
The question arises because the specific doctors that physicians look up to, those prominent medical school faculty and other highly renowned doctor-mentors from prestige medical schools, are sometimes paid by the giant pharmaceutical industries to market medicines via dinner meeting speeches to other doctors. And the public is wondering whether their doctors are being lied to by the powerful prescription drug industries.
Locally, on Sacramento radio, at least on one sports station, is finally alerting average listeners to the latest medical studies on statins as related to the risks and benefit. The studies are pointing to statins raising more risk of harm than benefits of health for average cardiovascular disease and stroke risk folks.
It's looking more like statins aren't reducing that many heart attacks and strokes after all, according to the latest studies on statins. Basically, it's one of the radio talk show personalities that yesterday (and repeated this morning) has let the public know more about the latest studies on statins and where to read one study. Also read the June 29, 2010 Los Angeles Times article by Melissa Healy about this latest study, Rift Over Statins.
You also can read the study from its primary source, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Read the study yourself, "Statins and All-Cause Mortality in High-Risk Primary Prevention: A Meta-analysis of 11 Randomized Controlled Trials Involving 65,229 Participants." Archives of Internal Medicine, 2010; 170(12):1024-1031.
The media is now disseminating this dispute between medical studies and the claims of the big prescription drug industries. The consumers' questions keep asking whether most doctors are controlled by big pharma's claims? And what happens to dissenting doctors that don't want to prescribe? Do they get intimidated by insurance companies who may want them to prescribe in order to get insurance?
One advantage radio talk show personalities can get away with is to say almost any statement allowed on the air by prefacing their comments with the phrase, "in my opinion." Yesterday, a major radio talk show personality on Sacramento's Extra Sports 860 station made the statements (paraphrased here) that "Doctors are controlled by the pharmaceutical industries just like pimps control prostitutes." He added, "Doctors are lied to by the pharmaceutical manufacturers."
The big question comes up for people who have doctors prescribing life-long use of statins soon after high cholesterol levels are found. If your doctor don't know, if the scientists need more time for research, it's left up to you to figure out whether the study applies to you and possibly suggests to that chronic, low cholesterol levels in the brain might trigger anxiety and depression. That's what the scientists say, but of course, they preface their study with the word "might trigger anxiety and depression."
Of course, your genetic predisposition kicks in here. Do you feel anxious and depressed when you take statins? And if chronic, low cholesterol levels in your brain could trigger depression, couldn't it also trigger the kind of behavior anxiety or depression leads to?
Scientists are reporting a possible explanation for the symptoms of anxiety and depression that occur in some patients taking the popular statin family of anti-cholesterol drugs, and reported by some individuals on low-cholesterol diets, according to the study.
Think about it. If you're on a low cholesterol diet, do you feel anxious and depressed? If you do, what if you eat a high cholesterol food, such as one of the three-egg omelettes? How about when you eat lots of fatty fish such as salmon or take fish oils? Do you feel less depressed at that time? These symptoms could result from long-term, low levels of cholesterol in the brain, the report suggests. Read the report in ACS' weekly journal Biochemistry.
There's also another article, "Aggressive control of cardiac risk factors might not benefit all patients with diabetes," according to the Phys.Org site. According to this article, a mathematical model suggests that aggressively pursuing low blood pressure and cholesterol levels may not benefit, and could even harm, some patients with diabetes, according to a report in the June 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Think about this topic regarding statins, and ask this question: Is it possible your doctor is being lied to about statins being able to lower the incidence of strokes and heart attacks? Another study was published on June 28, 2010 noting how many guidelines that direct doctors to treat patients with diabetes by aggressively treating high low-density lipoprotein (LDL or "bad" cholesterol) and blood pressure levels to reduce patients' risk of developing heart disease, according to background information in the article.
Doctors keep weighing risks against benefits and benefits against risks. But the studies are simply based on the average results of various trials. Doctors and scientists look at relative benefits of trials. The health care professionals you go to are looking at average results of trials that evaluate benefits and discuss risk factor control.
The big problem is that the studies or clinical trials are never tailored to your individual genetic risk for cardiovascular disease. You're not being treated based on treatment individually tailored to your genetic express, inherited risk factors, or even lifestyle. Your being prescribed drugs based on average clinical trial reports.
For example, did you ever ask your doctor whether or not all patients with diabetes are at equally high risk of cardiovascular disease? But think about it, aren't all patients with diabetes treated aggressively to lower their cholesterol levels whether or not they're at different levels of risk? And what did the study reveal about aggressive treatment?
Justin W. Timbie, Ph.D., of RAND Corp., Arlington, Va., and colleagues constructed a mathematical model to assess whether aggressive treatment would equally benefit all patients with diabetes. They started by using data from 30- to 75-year-old participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which provided representative estimates for the nearly 8 million individuals with diabetes in the 1990s, according to the article.
At this time, aggressive cholesterol and blood pressure treatment was uncommon. After excluding participants with low LDL levels and low blood pressure, the average LDL-C level was 151 milligrams per deciliter and the average blood pressure was 144/79 millimeters of mercury.
The researchers then simulated what would happen if these patients underwent increasingly intensive treatment until their LDL-C levels were lowered to 100 milligrams per deciliter and their blood pressure to 130/80 millimeters of mercury, according to that article. Treating to these targets resulted in estimated gains of 1.5 quality-adjusted life years—years of life in perfect health—for LDL-C levels and 1.35 for blood pressure.
Studies on Treatment-Related Declines in Life Span Reported in the Mainstream Media
These gains declined to 1.42 quality-adjusted life years for LDL-C and to 1.16 for blood pressure after considering treatment-related harms, which include muscle pain from taking statins and the safety hazards of taking multiple medications.
Basically, would you take a drug with possible side effects just to increase your life span one year and a few months? Wouldn't you rather use something else to get that extra year, such as exercise, walking more, or better food--perhaps trying a raw foods vegetarian diet a few days a week for a month? What else, you have to ask would get you that extra year or so? Of course, it's based on averages.
So is it worth the risk to take statins if other methods can be used that don't have the risks? What about quality of life? These are questions a lot of patients ask. The decision, of course, is between you and your doctor. But consider whether your doctor is controlled by the pharmaceutical giant industries, and question the authority, that is the possibility that your doctor is being marketed to, even, perhaps lied to?
The study's authors reported that "Most of the total benefit was limited to the first few steps of medication intensification or to tight control for a limited group of very high-risk patients."
What the outcome of the study revealed is that for the nearly three-fourths of patients at average risk, received very little benefit. So shouldn't you talk to your doctor and ask whether or not aggressive treatment with statins be geared more for patients not at average risk but at more serious risk?
Chances are if you ask your doctor such a question, the doctor may be so controlled by the giant prescription drug companies marketing information that the individual physician may not know who to believe. Or perhaps the doctor's entire career is controlled by the manufacturers of the drugs. One alternative is to go to a naturopath who also is an M.D. or D.O. who doesn't give prescription drugs such as statins as the first line of treatment.
The study looked at the process of accounting for treatment-related harms. The study's authors identified numerous examples in which "intensifying treatment would be contraindicated on the basis of risk-benefit considerations."
Also, the authors of the study concluded that in many instances the "expected benefits would be so small that shared patient-clinician decision making would seem to be the appropriate medical intervention."
So how aggressively should type 2 diabetics be treated for high cholesterol, for example? Shouldn't doctors first look at their patient's underlying cardiovascular disease risk? And instead of being controlled by the big pharma's marketing techniques using famous, prestige university-educated doctors, instead might take a look at the "diminishing efficacy of combination therapy and increasing polypharmacy and adverse effects," as the study's authors put it.
As far as this study, the authors recommend "a strategy of tailoring treatments to individual patients on the basis of their expected benefit of intensifying treatment." The treatment being given presently, the study reports, "to encourage uniformly lowering risk factors to common target levels can be both inefficient and cause unnecessary harm." Read the study yourself. See: JAMA and Archives Journals (news: web).
What's the best way to motivate kids to model good nutrition for their future children? Milk versus soda pop and sugary juices
Children aren't drinking enough clean, filtered water with meals or snacks. College students, teens, and younger kids are substituting sugary juices and sodas for milk. Is there a beverage even healthier that all three, like filtered water, or even decaf green tea without sweeteners added? College-age kids who don't consume at least three servings of dairy daily are three times more likely to develop metabolic syndrome than those who do, noted a new University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences study.
"And only one in four young persons in the study was getting the recommended amount of dairy," said Margarita Teran-Garcia, a University of Illinois professor of food science and human nutrition, according to the March 14, 2013 news release, "College kids who don't drink milk could face serious consequences."
The study, "Consumption of dairy and metabolic syndrome risk in a convenient sample of Mexican college applicants," published in the January 2013 issue of Food and Nutrition Sciences is available online. Co-authors are Michelle A. Mosley and Flavia C.D. Andrade of the U of I and Celia Aradillas-Garcia of the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico.
Is drinking cow's milk the only way or best way to prevent metabolic syndrome in teens and college-age students?
What about unsweetened almond milk or sheep's and goat's milk products? And would skim milk be effective rather than full-fat milk with those children who have a family history of very high cholesterol?
Kids are probably going to ask, then what happens to kids who are lactose intolerant because they didn't inherit the gene to digest cow's milk after the age of weaning from breast milk? Whey protein contains amino acids, according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Or what if some chidren inherited a gene that can't split the glucose from the galactose? See the YouTube video, Walter Veith 304 Udderly Amazing 1 of 8 - You Tube. There's also a shorter uTube video clip, Dairy Galactose in Milk and Cataracts etc. This shorter clip explains how galactose raises the risk of developing cataracts as galactose builds up in the body over the years, settling in the eyes as cataracts.
What about antibiotics and hormones given to cows to fatten them up? Is milk really the only answer to preventing metabolic syndrome in kids, teens, and college students? Can nondairy, unsweetened milk substitutes also be healthy for those young people predisposed to metabolic syndrome?
College-age 'kids' and metabolic syndrome: Are they drinking too many sodas and sugary juices?
That alarming finding means that three-fourths of the 18- to 25-year-old college applicants surveyed are at risk for metabolic syndrome, the researcher said, according to the news release. Metabolic syndrome occurs when a person has three of the following risk factors: abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and unhealthy cholesterol and lipid levels.
Having this disorder greatly increases a person's chances of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes, she said in the news release. Yet many scientists report that abdominal obesity is genetic. You're predisposed before birth to gain weight in the abdomen while your hips and thighs remain relatively thin, particularly as you age.
How dairy products guard against obesity
Although scientists believe that dairy products guard against obesity and the health problems that accompany extra weight, they aren't sure how it happens. "It may be the calcium, it may be the proteins. Whatever the mechanism, evidence suggests that dairy products are effective in attaining and maintaining a healthy weight," she said in the news release. Kids might ask why are some Asians and others from ethnic groups who never eat dairy products after being weaned from breast milk as babies, usually so thin throughout life? And why are so many obese or thin people with atherosclerosis told to stop eating cheese because their arteries are clogging up from full-fat cheese, butter, saturated fats, and various full-fat dairy products?
In the study, 339 Mexican college applicants filled out a food frequency questionnaire and were then evaluated for metabolic syndrome risk factors. The analysis controlled for sex, age, family history of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, and physical activity. The study is part of the Up Amigos project, a collaboration between scientists at the U of I and the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosί in Mexico.
The researchers are following university applicants to learn how changes in their BMI, weight, and eating and exercise habits affect the students' health over time. Check out the site, "The Up Amigos Project: Testing the Predictive Validity of the 2007 Pediatric Expert Committee Recommendations in Latinos." The research is important to Hispanics in the United States because many have a genetic predisposition for very low HDL (good) cholesterol, Teran-Garcia said in the news release. Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are disproportionately affected by cardiovascular disease and there is mounting evidence that Mexicans may be genetically prone to the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors, according to the Up Amigos Project's website.
Students and other children tend to substitute high-calorie sweetened beverages such as soda or juice for non-sweetened milk
"And obesity is now a more serious public health problem in Mexico than in the United States. According to new data from a national Mexican survey, 72 percent of adults are overweight or obese, in contrast to 66 to 70 percent of U.S. adults," she explained in the news release. The scientists suspected that students were substituting high-calorie sugar-sweetened beverages—for example, soda and juice drinks—for milk, but they found that wasn't the case.
Instead, a quarter of the group drank these sorts of beverages in addition to dairy products, contributing surplus calories, she said in the news release. Most kids aren't substituting water or decaf green tea for milk. It's soda, they're usually buying. That's what may be contributing to the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, and parents can look into this idea of substituting healthier beverages such as filtered water. Teran-Garcia emphasized the importance of developing healthy food habits early in life, and she sees her efforts at the university as an intervention that could change the students' thinking.
"We are concerned because persons in this age group don't visit the doctor often, and they may not know they have problems with their weight, blood pressure, lipids, or blood sugar," she said in the news release. Adopting the USDA dairy recommendation as a young person is a low-cost approach to maintain health and decrease future disease risk, she said in the news release. "And, in a few years, when our survey participants are parents, they'll be able to model good nutrition for their children."
Comments