Re: dairy osteoporosis

[Guest guest]

The question should be obvious to anyone who has read Nutrition and Physical

Degeneration. Many of the cultures Price studied drank milk, some of them

enormous amounts like the Masai (what is it, 7 gallons or something a

day???), and these had perfect teeth, broad nostrils, a broad palate, perfect

facial structure, no bone disease, etc. Price incorporated two tall glasses

of raw milk a day in his remineralizing plan, and he has pictures of x-rays

revealing cavities that remineralized and actually closed in the cavity

through bone growth of his patients, who ate one meal a day with him of wheat

gruel, cooked fruit, a soup made from bone stock with veggies, 1 1/2 tsp cod

liver oil and high-vitamin butter oil with a tall glass of raw milk before

and after the meal.

I had to read about milk causing osteoperosis in another damn book today and

it is the most irritating thing to read, over and over again. It's really

not a question worth much effort, there's no question that for people who are

not lactose intolerant, *raw* full-fat milk is a perfectly wholesoeme food.

People who consume more protein have less hip fractures. This has been

rehashed so many times. It should be obvious to anyone familiar with natural

foods and medicines that the stuff labeled " milk " in the grocery store is

anything but and any study using such and still calling it " milk " should not

be allowed to taint said name implying the horrid results to the actual food

that that pseudo-product is deceptively named after.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of

them make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense

compassion, which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to

bear the sight of the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature.

Thus they pray ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the

truth, and for those who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

[Guest guest]

It's probably, also, a lack of red meat and saturated fats, though I'm not

that familiar with the Asian diet.

www.westonaprice.org web site has an excellent article on this subject.

Judith Alta

-----Original Message-----

why do we have more osteoporosis in the United States than Asians when we

consume the most dairy??

Is it because people are drinking pasteurized milk or is it the actual

protein and salt that the body has to neutralize with calcium??

jen

[Guest guest]

The late distinguished physician, Dr. Melvin Page, demonstrated that

sugar consumption upsets the natural homeostasis of calcium and

phosphorus in the blood. Normally, these minerals exist in a precise

ratio of ten to four. Sugar consumption causes serum phosphorus to

decrease and calcium to rise.20 The excess serum calcium, which

comes from the bones and teeth, cannot be fully utilized because

phosphorus levels are too low. It is excreted in the urine or stored

in abnormal deposits such as kidney stones and gallstones. Caffeine

also upsets the natural balance of calcium and phosphorus, and

causes increased calcium to be excreted in the urine. Phosphoric

acid in soft drinks is a major cause of calcium deficiency in

children and osteoporosis in adults.21 Aluminum from antacids, cans

and pollution also contributes to bone loss.22

from http://www.westonaprice.org/myths_truths/myths_truths_bones.html

-And there you have it.

DMM

www.cedarcanyonclinic.com

--- In , " Evely " <je@h...>

wrote:

> why do we have more osteoporosis in the United States than Asians

when we

> consume the most dairy??

> Is it because people are drinking pasteurized milk or is it the

actual

> protein and salt that the body has to neutralize with calcium??

>

> jen

[Guest guest]

--- In , " Evely " <je@h...>

wrote:

> why do we have more osteoporosis in the United States

> than Asians when we consume the most dairy??

> Is it because people are drinking pasteurized milk or is

> it the actual protein and salt that the body has to

> neutralize with calcium??

>

> jen

Hi Jen:

As Weston Price so clearly showed, mineral consumption does not

prevent mineral deficiencies. Organic compounds that we can not

synthesize must accompany the minerals in order for these minerals

to enter into full nutritional service for our bodies. In Price's

experiments he found that a chemical test for antirachitic

properties was measuring a broader nutritional factor than the

vitamin D that it was assumed the test was for. Price identified

this broader factor as necessary for the body to fully utilize

minerals.

The soil scientist, Albrecht, who wrote the chapter

titled, " Food is fabricated soil fertility " , in the supplement to

Price's book, often talked about how little ash analysis tells you

about any food. In doing the ash analysis, the organic compounds

necessary for the animal or human to make use of the minerals, is

burnt off. He cited a repeatable scientific experiment that showed a

simple limestone treatment to the soil made the difference in

whether experimental rabbits were able make use of the calcium and

phosphorus in their ration. In both cases, whether the rabbits were

able to put the calcium and phosphorus into nutritional service or

not, the calcium and phosphorus were digested and absorbed. Hence,

digesting and absorbing minerals is apparently not enough.

All food varies in its nutritional value. So, for milk, raw is not

enough, cows on grass is not enough and organic is not enough, that

is, if you are looking for high nutrition. To think otherwise is

self-delusion.

Chi

[Guest guest]

Chi-

I agree with everything you said in this post, but something you said

awhile ago stuck with me because, frankly, it seems grievously

mistaken. If I'm not misremembering, you described the composition of your

diet at different points in time as being exclusively determined by the

quality of the soil the foods were grown on, not by what the foods actually

are. So I take it that you'd take bread grown on superb soil over liver

grown on merely OK soil. But soil fertility isn't the only factor

affecting the nutritional profile and quality of different foods, though

it's certainly of enormous importance. Some foods just don't have some

nutrients by their very nature, regardless of how good the soil they're

grown in. I don't know how poor a soil would have to be before liver

became less nutritious than bread, but I'm sure that in many or maybe even

most cases liver would be more the more nutritious food. (That's not to

say liver grown on poor soil would be a particularly good food, though it

would almost certainly be more nutritious than many other foods grown on

the same soil.)

>All food varies in its nutritional value. So, for milk, raw is not

>enough, cows on grass is not enough and organic is not enough, that

>is, if you are looking for high nutrition. To think otherwise is

>self-delusion.

-

[Guest guest]

Quoting Idol <Idol@...>:

> But soil fertility isn't the only factor

> affecting the nutritional profile and quality of different foods, though

> it's certainly of enormous importance. Some foods just don't have some

> nutrients by their very nature, regardless of how good the soil they're

> grown in.

Similarly, some foods must contain certain nutrients by their very nature.

Remember that everything we eat was alive at one point or another, and that

the things which we eat require many of the same nutrients which we need. A

plant or animal must have a certain amount of these nutrients to avoid

dying from malnutrition.

> I don't know how poor a soil would have to be before liver became

> less nutritious than bread, but I'm sure that in many or maybe even

> most cases liver would be more the more nutritious food. (That's not to

> say liver grown on poor soil would be a particularly good food, though it

> would almost certainly be more nutritious than many other foods grown on

> the same soil.)

I would be very surprised if any bread were better than any liver, provided

that it came from a relatively healthy animal.

--

Berg

bberg@...

[Guest guest]

--- In , Idol <Idol@c...>

wrote:

> Chi-

> I agree with everything you said in this post, but something

> you said awhile ago stuck with me because, frankly, it seems

> grievously mistaken. If I'm not misremembering, you described the

> composition of your diet at different points in time as being

> exclusively determined by the quality of the soil the foods were

> grown on, not by what the foods actually are.

Hi :

I just tried to reply to your post and it seems failed

to post my reply after asking for my password, so I will try again.

A bug, I guess.

Perhaps you are remembering the post I made about the cattle

choosing weeds over blue grass and white clover based on the

differing soil fertility in which the weeds and the blue grass and

white clover were growing. I would have pointed out that the cattle

were making this choice based on the soil fertility, not on the

nutritional potential of the crops.

As far as my diet goes, I have never had the opportunity to make

this choice. If I had the choice of an apple grown on low soil

fertility or an orange grown on high soil fertility, I would choose

the orange. If the soil fertility were the reverse, I would choose

the apple.

I had a copy of " Nutrition and Physical Degeneration " for many years

without drinking any milk. I made do with mainly organic raw fruits

and vegetables and occasionally, raw meat. The meat was muscle meat,

not organ meat, and yes, I had read Weston Price.

When I first talked to the farmer I buy milk from now, I asked him

two questions. They were, 1/ what breed of dairy cow did he have and

2/ what colour was his butter. I already knew the milk was not

pasteurized. His answers were canadienne and yellow. In talking to

this farmer it was clear that he had reduced his milk yield for

improved nutrition. He only used bio-dynamic methods for improving

soil fertility and the cows only ate grass which grew naturally in

the pastures or hayfields, all year long.

I jumped at the opportunity to make his milk, butter and cheeses the

main part of my diet. I also buy a very heavy bread he makes from

non-hybrid grain grown on his own farm. My milk consumption is 8

litres per week consumed in 6 days. Of course, living in the east, I

realize the nutritional value of the milk I drink is limited by the

soil fertility which was low in the east before the white Europeans

arrived to destroy it.

Chi

[Guest guest]

-

>Similarly, some foods must contain certain nutrients by their very nature.

>... A

>plant or animal must have a certain amount of these nutrients to avoid

>dying from malnutrition.

Quite true, but consider the rate of attrition in factory farms; maybe some

of those animals which actually make it to our plates actually were

malnourished enough to die. That doesn't mean even that meat isn't better

than nothing, though I do sometimes wonder.

>I would be very surprised if any bread were better than any liver, provided

>that it came from a relatively healthy animal.

ly, I agree, but I refrained from saying so because of the " relatively

healthy animal " caveat. If we're talking grass-fed animals, I'd expect

virtually all liver to be far superior to even the best bread. But it may

well be possible to create a liver that's so horrid that the best breads

would actually be better.

-

[Guest guest]

Chi-

>Perhaps you are remembering the post I made about the cattle

>choosing weeds over blue grass and white clover based on the

>differing soil fertility

No, actually I was referring to a post in which you discussed your own

diet. I think you mentioned that at one point, bread was a major component

of your diet.

>If I had the choice of an apple grown on low soil

>fertility or an orange grown on high soil fertility, I would choose

>the orange. If the soil fertility were the reverse, I would choose

>the apple.

Well, sure, but in this case you're really comparing apples to

apples. What if you had the choice between a loaf of bread made

traditionally from heirloom non-hybrid grains grown on very fertile soil

and a liver from a cow raised organically exclusively on pasture (grass and

weeds) but on soil of only medium fertility? Animals after all (can) serve

as nutrient-concentrators: they eat lots of grain, or grass, or other

animals, or whatever their natural food is (or whatever crap we feed them)

and at least to some degree, they aggregate a lot of those nutrients. It

seems to me that the cow's soil would have to be pretty darn poor before

its liver could possibly fail to exceed the nutrient value of even the best

possible loaf of bread.

Again, I don't mean to discount the importance of pursuing the highest

possible soil fertility (as difficult as that is in this benighted world)

but the choice of the types of foods to eat is also very important.

-

[Guest guest]

> why do we have more osteoporosis in the United States than Asians when we

> consume the most dairy??

> Is it because people are drinking pasteurized milk or is it the actual

> protein and salt that the body has to neutralize with calcium??

>

> jen

Jen,

Hi, I'm also quite interested in osteoporosis, because I'm hoping to live

well past 100 years. I wouldn't doubt that pasteurized milk is a source

of health problems for many Americans, but I doubt we can blame osteo on

it to any large extent. Like most things, I'm sure there are many factors

that combine to give the high rates of this problem here. As far as I

understand, the mainstream view is that excesses of salt, sugar, caffeine

protein, and phosphorus (in soda), are major culprits, in addition to the

patently obvious issues of exercise, mineral intake, and hormones.

As we all know, the part about protein is controversial, and I'm not confident

in the viewpoint of either side. However, I seriously doubt it is something

that needs any particular attention if one's diet is within reason.

I would like to second Chris' view that even using the same name " milk " to

refer to both the raw and pasteurized versions is deeply misleading.

Considering the tiny number of people in America that consume real milk,

there is nothing statistically significant we can say about milk

consumption and the widespread prevalance of a health problem like osteo.

However, since the fortification of synthetic retinol is required for

commercial milk in the US, and there are studies suggesting a link between

retinol and osteo, commercial, pasteurized milk may be indirectly linked

to osteo. I have only recently been made aware of this connection between

retinol and osteo, and it is near the top of my list of health topics to

investigate when I have a chance (hopefully I can get to this in the next

two or three weeks). At this time I can only speculate that the problem

may lie with synthetic retinol and not natural retinol, and of course I

hope that this is the case, but I can't yet discount the possibility that

excess (not normal levels, whatever they may be) natural retinol is also a

problem for bone health. (For now I'm agnostic.) One of the most common

arguments against milk is that some Scandinavian countries are the among the

heaviest dairy consumers, while also having some of the highest osteo rates.

However, it appears most likely that this is not due to the milk itself, but

rather

the level of retinol consumption in the countries, especially Sweden,

where synthetic retinol fortification in dairy is far more ubiquitious

than elsewhere. Again, I need to look into this issue, so don't take

anything I'm saying here with any great confidence.

By the way, I have seen a few claims that the Ca in kale is absorbed

slightly better than milk (around 40% I think), but I doubt this

comparison was made using real milk, and we have to be cautious when such

claims come from people with an intellectually irresponsible anti-milk

agenda. In any case, kale is a true wonderfood that I'd choose anyday

over milk, real or otherwise. (I do consume raw milk everyday too, in the form

of

kefir or sometimes warm right out of the cow.)

Soil fertility, and the lack of Mg and trace minerals is my best

guess for the strongest link to osteo, and this is certainly the hardest problem

for

us to solve as individuals. This reminds me that I can recommend the book

" Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis " by Alan R. Gaby. I recently

reread a few chapters and he provides a lot of evidence for the importance

of various minerals other than Ca (and also Folic Acid, B6, and Vit K).

Of course we all know that the exclusive focus on Ca has been a major flaw

in most discourse on osteo, but I was surprised to learn about such issues

as Strontium and Silicon deficiences. Gaby is a bit of a pill-pusher, but

the info is still very useful for us NT-types. I personally include nuts

and sea veggies in my diet as a useful source of various trace minerals, and

I'm still working on the Mg issue. Gaby's book has extensive discussion of

hormone issues from a practical point of view, but I can't recall too many

details of

that because it's been a while since I read it (and I'm a male non-doctor

).

The other book I've read on osteo is " The Bone Density Diet " , but this is

not an especially good book, just lots of standard info, maybe good for

someone who is reading on the topic for the very first time. The dietary

advice is mediocre at best, and I get really furious when people list

fortified foods as good sources of a nutrient (Ca in this case). It

really makes my blood boil! As if it's any different than popping the

cheapest supplement pill you can find!

If somebody knows of any good osteo books, be sure to drop a note.

By the way, I want to remark on Judith's comment:

>It's probably, also, a lack of red meat and saturated fats, though I'm

>not that familiar with the Asian diet.

I don't think there's any lack of saturated fat in any traditional diets,

Asian or otherwise. Also, the phrase " the Asian diet " is probably without

a referent, as there are dozens of completely unrelated Asian diets, just

as there are dozens of completely unrelated Asian languages. We have to

be careful about making generalizations about such a huge chunk of our

planet...

Mike

[Guest guest]

Mike,

I agree with you that pasteurized milk is probably not directly related to

osteo. I was in a debate back when I was a vegetarian with someone about

whether protein per se caused bone loss (a view I opposed at the time as well

as now) and they presented several studies on Ca absorption in milk. The

assertion was that the protein causes Ca *loss* but the studies only showed

that the Ca in milk was relatively unusalbe and less absorbable than calcium

carbonate supplements. But *some* of the Ca *was* utilized in the milk, and

so the milk (that is, pasteurized pseudo- " milk " ) did *not* cause a net

calcium loss, but rather a net calcium *gain*. That said, the absoprtion was

poor and the studies *did* demonstrate that pasteurized " milk " is not a good

source of calcium, but that's a long-shot to from saying it actively causes

bone loss.

Chris

____

" What can one say of a soul, of a heart, filled with compassion? It is a

heart which burns with love for every creature: for human beings, birds, and

animals, for serpents and for demons. The thought of them and the sight of

them make the tears of the saint flow. And this immense and intense

compassion, which flows from the heart of the saints, makes them unable to

bear the sight of the smallest, most insignificant wound in any creature.

Thus they pray ceaselessly, with tears, even for animals, for enemies of the

truth, and for those who do them wrong. "

--Saint Isaac the Syrian

[Guest guest]

I think the concept of " you need calcium to process protein " stands up

pretty well to the common-sense test. There was a good study on it though.

I try for high calcium foods, but take good supplements just in case (I

don't absorb the stuff very well)

http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/20/23/03.html

Results of the group who received the calcium and vitamin - D supplements

were as follows: The low-protein group lost bone density (but less than the

low-protein placebo group). The medium and high-protein groups gained bone

density, and there was a linear correlation between the amount of total

bone mineral density gain and protein ingested. In this case, the higher

the dietary protein (animal or vegetable), the greater the bone gain.

>

Heidi S