Harvard Scientists Urge You to Stop Drinking Milk

Vegans may have had it right all along; while raw, organic milk offers numerous health benefits, a Harvard

researcher and pediatrician argues that conventional milk and dairy products alike are a detriment to your health – thanks to added health-compromising sweeteners.

As David Ludwig mentioned in his research, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, there have been countless pieces of research concluding the ill effects of sugar-sweetened beverages. The over-consumption of sugar has been tied to obesity, diabetes, inflammatory-related pain, and much more. And because of sugar’s negative effects on our health, even the United States Department of Agriculture, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other organizations are recommending against consuming calories from sugary drinks.

The one calorie-containing beverage they still heavily promote, however, is reduced-fat milk, where the organization recommends drinking 3 cups daily. This is where Ludwig questions the scientific rationale for such recommendations.

“This recommendation to drink three cups a day of milk – it’s perhaps the most prevailing advice given to the American public about diet in the last half century. As a result, Americans are consuming billions of gallons of milk a year, presumably under the assumption that their bones would crumble without them,” says David Ludwig.

As far as Ludwig is concerned, if the USDA is recommending to drink reduced-fat milk, it is also inadvertently encouraging the consumption of added sugars – a piece of advice that goes against all the research saying not to consume sugar and sugar-sweetened beverages. The idea of consuming low-fat milk or chocolate milk cancels out the whole reasoning for the recommendation in the first place since the fats are simply being replaced with dangerous sugars.

“The worst possible situation is reduced-fat chocolate milk: you take out the fat, it’s less tasty. So to get kids to drink 3 cups a day, you get this sugar-sweetened beverage,” Ludwig says. ”…we can get plenty of calcium from a whole range of foods. On a gram for gram basis, cooked kale has more calcium than milk. Sardines, nuts seeds beans, green leafy vegetables are all sources of calcium.”

The Case Against Low-Fat Dairy, and Other Dangers of Milk

Harvard researcher David Ludwig certainly has a point in analyzing and ultimately criticizing the USDA’s recommendations, but there is much more to the full-fat vs reduced-fat argument for milk and dairy products.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid certain fats such as trans-fats and refined polyunsaturated fats in vegetable oils (like corn, soy, sunflower, and canola), but the evidence for moderate consumption of saturated fat, which is found in milk, coconut oil, and grass-fed land animals, is coming to the surface. While saturated fat was villainized for decades, a 2010 analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that “there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of [coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease].”

Further, there are numerous benefits to drinking full-fat dairy products. In it’s most pure state (raw, organic, and coming from grass-fed cows), full-fat dairy has been found in research to potentially promote heart health, control diabetes, aid in vitamin absorption, lower bowel cancer risk, and even aid in weight loss. But while pure dairy could promote your health, conventional dairy may prove damaging.

Before you consume more conventional dairy, please educate yourself as to what’s in your dairy. You’d be surprised that there could be 20+ painkillers, antibiotics, and much more lurking in your milk.

Source

Artificals sweeteners may harm your health even no-calorie ones

A new research in Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism along with previous studies indicate that everyone should say goodbye to these no-calorie sweeteners for several important reasons you may not even realize.

What’s not so sweet about artificial sweeteners

If you believe no-calorie artificial sweeteners are safe and healthy, that they can help you lose weight or prevent you from gaining weight, and that they are good to use if you have diabetes, you would not be alone in these beliefs. However, a new study, as well as previous investigations, suggests quite the opposite.

Two thirds of Americans are either overweight or obese, so providing more products with artificial sweeteners should be a good thing, right? One area where consumption of diet products has risen steadily is diet drinks, with a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting that diet beverage intake increased from 18 percent in 2000 to 21 percent in 2010 among women and from 14 percent to 19 percent among men during the same period.

However, drinking just one artificially sweetened beverage per day may increase your risk for a variety of health problems, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cardiovascular disease. If you thought sugar-based drinks were associated with these same risks, you are right.

In fact, according to Susan E. Swithers of Purdue University, the author of a new study, the data to support claims that artificially sweetened drinks help with weight loss, weight gain prevention, and other benefits “are not very strong.” She also stated that “although it seems like common sense that diet sodas would not be as problematic as regular sodas, common sense is not always right.”

What might be considered common sense, however, is avoiding both artificially sweetened and sugar-sweetened beverages, since both types reportedly are associated with major health problems. The reason for this finding, according to the authors, seems to be that artificial sweeteners alter certain patterns in the brain’s pleasure regions, causing people who drink these beverages to not feel satisfied by the sweet taste.

In fact, when lab animals have been given artificial sweeteners, they have tended to highly desire more sweets. The result has been a tendency to overeat sugary, high-calorie foods and gain significant amounts of weight.

Thus the not-so-sweet news for anyone who has been consuming artificially sweetened beverages and foods is that “the intake of sugars needs to be expanded to limit intake of all sweeteners, not just sugars,” according to the study’s author. But there is more.

More health hazards from artificial sweeteners

Let’s look at some previous studies on artificial sweeteners and their potential hazards. Aspartame is a good place to begin, as there are reports that the chemical has a negative impact on brain function.

One new study from the Washington University School of Medicine looked at aspartame (e.g., Equal, NutraSweet) and its safety record. Investigators reported several concerns about aspartame:
Aspartame metabolizes into phenylalanine, aspartic acid, and methanol, and excess phenylalanine has an impact on serotonin and dopamine levels, which are hormones involved in the regulation of appetite, mood, and sleep.

One of aspartame’s metabolites, called diketopiperazine, has cancer-causing properties and plays a role in the development of tumors of the central nervous system. Thus use of foods and beverages that contain aspartame may pose a health hazard.

Other dangers of using artificial sweeteners relate to an increased risk of developing conditions associated with type 2 diabetes, including glucose resistance and insulin resistance. In particular, investigators at Washington University School of Medicine looked at Splenda (sucralose) and its impact on glucose and insulin resistance.

In the study, researchers evaluated the effect of artificial sweeteners among severely obese people who did not have diabetes and who did not use artificial sweeteners regularly. They found that use of an artificial sweetener “was related to an enhanced blood insulin and glucose response.”

A Danish study evaluated the impact of both sugar-based and artificially sweetened beverages on pregnant women. Overall the investigators discovered that high intake of both types of beverages is associated with an increased risk of preterm delivery.

A possible link between artificial sweeteners and cancer has long been debated, with scores of studies indicating an increased risk of various types of tumors in animal studies. Far fewer studies have examined the association in humans.

One example in the latter category is a study that was published in the December 2012 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The Boston-based researchers looked at the intake of artificially sweetened and sugar-based sodas and the risk of leukemia and lymphoma in adults.

The investigators reviewed data from the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, spanning 22 years of information. They found an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphomas and multiple myelomas among men (but not women) who consumed at least one diet soda daily when compared with men who did not drink diet soda.

The bottom line is that much controversy and debate surround the use of artificial sweeteners. Scores of studies in animals suggest their use can cause a variety of cancers, allergic reactions, and even neurological problems, yet authorities such as the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the European Food Safety Authority, among others, have continued to declare these synthetic products are safe for human consumption.

A number of health experts and consumer advocate groups, such as Dr. Andrew Weil and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, have pointed out the health dangers of artificial sweeteners. Weil, for example, explains in a Prevention article that these synthetic sweeteners have “never been shown to help anyone lose weight, and some of them are downright bad for you.”

Weil also warned that “aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose all have been shown to increase the risk of some health problems, including obesity, headaches, and some types of cancer.” Are these products you want to feed to your children and yourself?

Evidence against the safety of artificial sweeteners continues to build, despite resistance from food industry manufacturers and others with a financial interest in their remaining on the market. Perhaps it’s time for everyone who is concerned about their health to say goodbye to artificial sweeteners.

Source

Harvard Scientists Urge You to Stop Drinking Sweetened-Milk

Vegans may have had it right all along; while raw, organic milk offers numerous health benefits, a Harvard researcher and pediatrician argues that conventional milk and dairy products alike are a detriment to your health – thanks to added health-compromising sweeteners.

As David Ludwig mentioned in his research, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, there have been countless pieces of research concluding the ill effects of sugar-sweetened beverages. The over-consumption of sugar has been tied to obesity, diabetes, inflammatory-related pain, and much more. And because of sugar’s negative effects on our health, even the United States Department of Agriculture, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and other organizations are recommending against consuming calories from sugary drinks.

The one calorie-containing beverage they still heavily promote, however, is reduced-fat milk, where the organization recommends drinking 3 cups daily. This is where Ludwig questions the scientific rationale for such recommendations.

“This recommendation to drink three cups a day of milk – it’s perhaps the most prevailing advice given to the American public about diet in the last half century. As a result, Americans are consuming billions of gallons of milk a year, presumably under the assumption that their bones would crumble without them,” says David Ludwig.

As far as Ludwig is concerned, if the USDA is recommending to drink reduced-fat milk, it is also inadvertently encouraging the consumption of added sugars – a piece of advice that goes against all the research saying not to consume sugar and sugar-sweetened beverages. The idea of consuming low-fat milk or chocolate milk cancels out the whole reasoning for the recommendation in the first place since the fats are simply being replaced with dangerous sugars.

“The worst possible situation is reduced-fat chocolate milk: you take out the fat, it’s less tasty. So to get kids to drink 3 cups a day, you get this sugar-sweetened beverage,” Ludwig says. ”…we can get plenty of calcium from a whole range of foods. On a gram for gram basis, cooked kale has more calcium than milk. Sardines, nuts seeds beans, green leafy vegetables are all sources of calcium.”

The Case Against Low-Fat Dairy, and Other Dangers of Milk

Harvard researcher David Ludwig certainly has a point in analyzing and ultimately criticizing the USDA’s recommendations, but there is much more to the full-fat vs reduced-fat argument for milk and dairy products.

There are plenty of reasons to avoid certain fats such as trans-fats and refined polyunsaturated fats in vegetable oils (like corn, soy, sunflower, and canola), but the evidence for moderate consumption of saturated fat, which is found in milk, coconut oil, and grass-fed land animals, is coming to the surface. While saturated fat was villainized for decades, a 2010 analysis published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that “there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of [coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease].”

Further, there are numerous benefits to drinking full-fat dairy products. In it’s most pure state (raw, organic, and coming from grass-fed cows), full-fat dairy has been found in research to potentially promote heart health, control diabetes, aid in vitamin absorption, lower bowel cancer risk, and even aid in weight loss. But while pure dairy could promote your health, conventional dairy may prove damaging.

Before you consume more conventional dairy, please educate yourself as to what’s in your dairy. You’d be surprised that there could be 20+ painkillers, antibiotics, and much more lurking in your milk.

Source