MILK

Your privacy is a PRIMARY consideration of AskDrSears.com. Your e-mail address is used ONLY by AskDrSears.com for the purpose of announcing news, events and special offers available only AskDrSears.com registered users.

Baby Sling Closeout Special!
Extended through May until sold out!

Buy a baby sling for a friend and get one free for yourself
or get just one at 50% off.

Buy one get one free
Discount code: freesling
Or 50% off your babysling
Discount code: halfoff
expires: 05/30/08

*Not valid in conjuction with any other offers.

"Got milk?" ask the ads. "Do you really need milk?" ask parents. There is a place for milk and dairy products in the American diet, as long as you choose the right kinds. Here are some questions you may have about milk for kids and grown-ups.

Why is milk so good for children? While cow's milk is really designed for baby cows rather than baby humans, it's a nutritional staple in the diet of many cultures. For children who are not lactose-intolerant or allergic to dairy products, milk is one-stop shopping for nutrition. It contains nearly all the basic nutrients that a growing child needs: fats, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals (except iron). While it is true that most of the nutrients in milk can be gotten easily from other sources, such as vegetables, legumes, and seafood, milk puts them all together in a convenient package. Realistically, children eat or drink dairy products in greater amounts and more consistently than other foods. While whole milk is not the only way to get calcium in a child's diet, it's the most practical way. Good luck serving your child a breakfast of calcium-rich broccoli, kale, and sardines. Specifically, these are the nutritional benefits of milk, per 8-ounce glass:

While milk isn't the perfect food, it still delivers a lot of nutrition in all its various forms, such as cheese, cottage cheese, and yogurt. Besides, milk and dairy products are foods that kids will eat and drink willingly. Despite the bad press about milk, it has a lot of good nutritional things going for it.

I worry about allergies. We have a lot of allergies in our family and I'm concerned that my child may develop milk allergies. How common are these and how do I recognize them? Milk allergies are over-diagnosed by the general population and under-diagnosed by doctors. The real incidence of milk allergies lies somewhere between the folklore and the skeptical view of many physicians. Around five percent of children and adults seem to be either allergic to milk or intolerant of it. One carefully controlled study showed that 75 percent of infants under one year of age were allergic to cow's milk. Cow's milk allergy is more likely to develop in children who have a family history of milk allergy. The good news is that of the approximately two percent of children who are truly allergic to milk, many will outgrow this allergy by the time they are two or three-years-old.

The protein in cow's milk is what provokes the allergies. Because milk is a species-specific protein, cow's milk is suited to bovine intestines. Exposure of human intestines to bovine protein may cause irritation and damage to the intestinal lining, allowing these allergenic proteins to be absorbed into the circulatory system. The immune system recognizes these proteins as foreign and attacks them, causing the usual allergy symptoms of wheezing, runny nose, or a red, rough, sandpaper-like rash, especially on the cheeks. Milk allergies are often the underlying cause of repeated colds and ear infections, due to fluid building up in the respiratory passages, sinuses, and eustachian tubes of the ears. Milk allergy has been implicated in subtle behavioral changes, such as irritability and nightwaking. Research has even shown that the allergic proteins in milk (beta lactalglobulin) can pass through a breastfeeding mother's milk into her baby and cause some babies to react with colicky symptoms. The colic- cow's milk connection should be suspected as a possible cause of fussy behavior in an otherwise, normal breastfed baby. The allergic reaction between the milk protein and the intestinal lining can cause minute gastrointestinal bleeding (sometimes so slight that it is missed) and be a subtle cause of anemia in infants and young children.

Chronic milk allergy can also weaken the intestinal lining, allowing foreign substances into the bloodstream that would ordinarily be screened out, a condition known as the leaky gut syndrome.

Since true milk allergy involves the protein in the milk, the fat content of the milk should not affect allergy symptoms. People who are allergic to milk may be able to tolerate cheese or yogurt, or milk in baked goods. When milk is heated, the proteins become less allergenic. (See related topic )

I've heard about lactose intolerance. Is this a common problem with milk? Like milk allergy, lactose intolerance is usually an over-diagnosed or a self-diagnosed problem. Lactose, the sugar in both human and cow's milk, is normally digested by the intestinal enzyme, lactase, which breaks the lactose down into glucose and galactose. Some infants, children, and adults are deficient in this intestinal enzyme and thus cannot absorb lactose. When the amount of lactose in the diet exceeds the supply of lactase in the cells of the intestinal lining, the undigested lactose travels down the intestines. There bacteria digest some of the lactose, but the rest ferment and are converted into the gas, carbon dioxide, which causes bloating , diarrhea, and abdominal pain, and to lactic acid, which accounts for the red, irritated, burn-like ring around the anus, especially noticeable in lactose-intolerant children. Other more subtle symptoms are: headaches, fatigue, and bad breath.

Lactose intolerance is rare in infants, but more common as people get older, so there is some biochemical basis for the idea that you outgrow your need for milk. There are degrees of lactose intolerance, depending on the supply of lactase in the gut. Some children and adults can tolerate one glass of milk, but not two or three; or they can drink milk with a meal, but not separately on an empty stomach. Many can tolerate yogurt and cheese, but not milk as a beverage. (The lactose in fermented yogurt is somewhat predigested.) Lactose intolerance is more common than allergy to the protein in milk. Allergic symptoms usually involve the skin and respiratory systems, whereas lactose intolerance is limited to abdominal symptoms. Lactose- intolerance is especially prevalent in Asians, Hispanics, and African-Americans. In fact, it is estimated that around three-fourths of the world's population experience some degree of lactose intolerance.

Lactose intolerance may appear after the intestinal lining has been injured by allergy or infection. This is called secondary lactose intolerance, and it lasts only until the intestinal lining is healed. It is especially common in children after a diarrhea-producing viral illness and the reason for delaying the introduction of milk during the recovery stage.

If you are lactose-intolerant, try these strategies for getting the nutritional benefits of milk into your diet:

Does milk contain a lot of fat? Yes and no, depending on whether you use whole, lowfat, or skim milk. Since milk is an animal product, most of the fat in milk is saturated. So you can scratch whole milk from a heart-healthy diet. A glass of whole milk contains five grams of saturated fat, two-percent milk contains 2.9 grams of saturated fat, and a glass of one percent milk contains 1.6 grams of saturated fat. An 8-ounce glass of whole milk also contains 23-31 milligrams of cholesterol, and three glasses of whole milk contain about the same amount of cholesterol as one lean ground beef patty. In contrast, a glass of one-percent (lowfat) milk will contain only ten grams of cholesterol. Three glasses of milk will contain 30 milligrams of cholesterol, only one-tenth of the maximum 300 milligrams a day recommended for an adult and only one-fifth of the maximum 150 milligrams a day recommended for an average pre-school child.

Cow's milk does not contain any of the essential fatty acids necessary for brain and body growth in young children. The fat composition of milk depends upon the composition of the fat in the cow's feed, and the essential fatty acids from the cow feed may be hydrogenated or saturated as they pass through the cow's four stomachs. The fats in cow's milk even contain trans fatty acids, and the amount depends upon the season of the year the cow is grazing (up to six percent in the summer and three percent in the winter). As you can see, there are many good reasons for choosing lowfat or skim milk over two-percent or whole milk.

NUTRITIP: Does Milk Make Mucus?

Is the warning not to drink milk when you have a cold an old doctor's tale? Yes and no. Some people do make more mucus when they drink milk, and any high- fat food may produce a sensation of thicker secretions in the back of the throat. Yet, the mucus-producers are probably those that are allergic to milk. Separating out milk-allergic persons, research fails to show any correlation between drinking milk and mucus production during a cold. In conclusion, you need extra fluids during a cold, anyway, so if you're not allergic it's okay to drink a few glasses of lowfat milk.

I've heard there is a link between cow's milk and diabetes. Is this true? Possibly. Studies comparing diabetes with the general population have shown a statistical correlation between young children drinking milk and the later onset of insulin-dependent diabetes. Further studies are needed, but researchers speculate that the early introduction of cow's milk may cause an immune reaction in the body. By some biochemical quirk, the protein in cow's milk (bovine serum albumin) is similar to the natural proteins in the pancreas, the organ that manufactures insulin. Researchers theorize that some people produce antibodies in reaction to cow's milk protein that attach themselves to the insulin- producing cells in the pancreas, eventually destroying them and leading to diabetes. In one statistical study, insulin-dependent children had elevated levels of anti-bovine serum albumin antibodies, but the control children only had a small amount of these antibodies in their blood.

It's prudent to delay the introduction of cow's milk to breastfed infants and children in the following situations:

The possible connection between diabetes and cow's milk can't be all that strong, since over 99 percent of the baby boomers who were raised on cow's milk formulas have not gone on to develop insulin-dependent diabetes. So it looks like we're back to the science of common sense. Cow's milk is meant for baby cows. Human milk is better for human babies.

The studies implicating cow's milk in a child's diet with a higher incidence of later illnesses are preliminary and of concern, but they should not be interpreted to mean that children should not drink cow's milk (with some exceptions). It's entirely possible that cow's milk loses by default; that is, the link between the consumption of cow's milk at an early age and the development of later illnesses may not be directly due to the cow's milk but rather to the absence of breastmilk in the child's diet in the first one or two years.

Is it true that children and adults have more medical problems with the more milk they drink? Possibly. Compared with breastfeeding infants, cow's milk (and formula) fed infants have more middle-ear infections, more upper respiratory tract infections, and more intestinal infections. And there is the possible diabetes/cow's milk connection described above. There are those who would make milk the scapegoat for just about every ailment imaginable � from bedwetting to hyperactivity � but there is no scientific evidence for a cause-and-effect relationship between milk-drinking and any of these other illnesses. In fairness to much-maligned milk, in our opinion, any connection between cow's milk and disease is probably more a result of the absence of breastmilk in the infant's diet than it is a reaction to the presence of cow's milk.

I heard that milk can contain a lot of pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Is it safe? The safety of milk depends on who's interpreting the data. While milk-bashing is popular among consumer groups, the government (with the support of the American Dairy Council) has tried to foster a pure image for the sacred cow. Cow feed undoubtedly contains pesticides, and cows are given antibiotics to keep them from getting sick and hormones to increase their milk production. Whether or not these substances show up in standard milk (which is supposed to be tested for detectable residues) is uncertain. Be sure. Buy certified organic milk, which means there were never hormones or antibiotics in the cow feed and the milk was protected from pollutants during processing.

NUTRITIP: Healthier Milk

Buy certified organic milk. It doesn't contain antibiotics or added bovine growth hormone (BGH).

Name:
Email:
Would you also like to receive special promotions on Dr Sears Books and Products? Yes No

Our Privacy Policy Your privacy is a PRIMARY consideration of AskDrSears.com. Your e-mail address is used ONLY by AskDrSears.com for the purpose of announcing news, events and special offers available only AskDrSears.com registered users.