Drink your milk

Here is a good one for you!

Drink milk to limit exercise induced muscle damage.....

Effect of volume of milk consumed on the attenuation of exercise-induced muscle damage

Exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) leads to decrements in muscle performance, increases in intramuscular proteins and delayed-onset of muscle soreness (DOMS). Previous research demonstrated that one litre of milk-based protein–carbohydrate (CHO) consumed immediately following muscle damaging exercise can limit changes in markers of EIMD possibly due to attenuating protein degradation and/or increasing protein synthesis. If the attenuation of EIMD is derived from changes in protein metabolism then it can be hypothesised that consuming a smaller volume of CHO and protein will elicit similar effects. Three independent matched groups of 8 males consumed 500 mL of milk, 1,000 mL of milk or a placebo immediately following muscle damaging exercise. Passive and active DOMS, isokinetic muscle performance, creatine kinase (CK), myoglobin and interleukin-6 were assessed immediately before and 24, 48 and 72 h after EIMD. After 72 h 1,000 mL of milk had a likely benefit for limiting decrements in peak torque compared to the placebo. After 48 h, 1,000 mL of milk had a very likely benefit of limiting increases in CK in comparison to the placebo. There were no differences between consuming 500 or 1,000 mL of milk for changes in peak torque and CK. In conclusion, decrements in isokinetic muscle performance and increases in CK can be limited with the consumption of 500 mL of milk.

more on milk

here is another recent one on dairy, this time pointed out to me by reader Matthew Clarke:

Hepatic accumulation of intestinal cholesterol is decreased and fecal cholesterol excretion is increased in mice fed a high-fat diet supplemented with milk phospholipids

So eat a high fat diet, but don't get a fatty liver.....because you shit out the cholesterol, if you are also eating milk phospholipids... ( and if you are a mouse)


The whole paper is available

I like the last sentence of the paper:

Whether or not this is of therapeutic relevance in man remains to be determined.

maybe something that should be written about every animal study out there!

Dairy again - milk fat and diabetes

The controversy around milk still continues in my mind.  I can see the standard paleo arguments against, but the chemistry is a bit more complex.  Studies keep popping up about the health benefits of milk fat (I long  ago gave up any idea that saturated fat was unhealthy).

Here is another:

 a fatty acid in milk fat is associated with a substantially lower risk of type 2 insulin resistant diabetes.

The excellent Future Pundit blog has a good write up.

Dairy controversy - milk lowers cardiovascular disease?

Dairy continues to be one that I swither over.  I have no problems with butter.  Milk give me phelgm and while I love cream I had to cut dow recently to lose some bodyfat.

Anyway, this popped up yesterday too:

A study to be published in the January edition of American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reveals that drinking three glasses of milk per day may lead to an 18% decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Again, all the usual caveats - association not causation etc.

More here:  Go ahead, drink your milk

Did Lactose Tolerance Trigger the Indo-European Expansion?

Given recent debates about Vitamin D, paleo and milk etc I thought this essay was interesting.

Did Lactose Tolerance Trigger the Indo-European Expansion?

Some extracts:

Agriculture allowed those who practiced it to greatly expand their numbers, but it is distinctly possible that the nutritional quality of the food of early farmers was initially worse than that which had traditionally been available to hunter-gatherers. Consequently, the health of each individual was not necessarily better in the Neolithic period than it had been in the Paleolithic era. The bodies of those who practiced agriculture had to adapt to a new diet consisting of foods that had either not been eaten before or had previously been of only minor importance.

According to The 10,000 Year Explosion, “For example, we see changes in genes affecting transport of vitamins into cells. Similarly, vitamin D shortages in the new diet may have driven the evolution of light skin in Europe and northern Asia. Vitamin D is produced by ultraviolet radiation from the sun acting on our skin – an odd, plantlike way of going about things. Less is therefore produced in areas far from the equator, where UV flux is low. Since there is plenty of vitamin D in fresh meat, hunter-gatherers in Europe may not have suffered from vitamin D shortages and thus may have been able to get by with fairly dark skin. In fact, this must have been the case, since several of the major mutations causing light skin color appear to have originated after the birth of agriculture. Vitamin D was not abundant in the new cereal-based diet, and any resulting shortages would have been serious, since they could lead to bone malformations (rickets), decreased resistance to infectious diseases, and even cancer. This may be why natural selection favored mutations causing light skin, which allowed for adequate vitamin D synthesis in regions with little ultraviolet radiation.”

Paleo diet and milk

An interesting study here for you to peruse - the full pdf is available currently.

It is not so much the study itself, more the idea that some of are - by nature / genetics - able to digest milk and some aren't. Dairy is a bit controversial on a paleo diet - see Kurt Harris or Mark Sisson

A worldwide correlation of lactase persistence phenotype and genotypes

More Dairy = Less Inflammation?

Effects of dairy compared with soy on oxidative and inflammatory stress in overweight and obese subjects

Background: We recently showed that calcitriol increases oxidative and inflammatory stress; moreover, inhibition of calcitriol with high-calcium diets decreased both adipose tissue and systemic oxidative and inflammatory stress in obese mice, whereas dairy exerted a greater effect. However, these findings may be confounded by concomitant changes in adiposity.

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the acute effects of a dairy-rich diet on oxidative and inflammatory stress in overweight and obese subjects in the absence of adiposity changes.

Design: Twenty subjects (10 obese, 10 overweight) participated in a blinded, randomized, crossover study of dairy- compared with soy-supplemented eucaloric diets. Two 28-d dietary periods were separated by a 28-d washout period. Inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers were measured on days 0, 7, and 28 of each dietary period.

Results: The dairy-supplemented diet resulted in significant suppression of oxidative stress (plasma malondialdehyde, 22%; 8-isoprostane-F2, 12%; P < 0.0005) and lower inflammatory markers (tumor necrosis factor-, 15%, P < 0.002; interleukin-6, 13%, P < 0.01; monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, 10%, P < 0.0006) and increased adiponectin (20%, P < 0.002), whereas the soy exerted no significant effect. These effects were evident by day 7 of treatment and increased in magnitude at the end of the 28-d treatment periods. There were no significant differences in response to treatment between overweight and obese subjects for any variable studied.

Conclusion: An increase in dairy food intake produces significant and substantial suppression of the oxidative and inflammatory stress associated with overweight and obesity. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00686426.

Drink your milk - updated

Dairy is one of those things that is somewhat controversial on a paleo diet, but most low carb people are quite happy with it - Barry Groves for example thinks minimally processed milk is great

I just spotted this new research

Research undertaken by the Universities of Reading, Cardiff and Bristol has found that drinking milk can lessen the chances of dying from illnesses such as coronary heart disease (CHD) and stroke by up to 15-20 %.

UPDATE here is the abstract:

REVIEW

The Survival Advantage of Milk and Dairy Consumption: an Overview of Evidence from Cohort Studies of Vascular Diseases, Diabetes and Cancer


Objectives: To conduct a detailed evaluation, with meta-analyses, of the published evidence on milk and dairy consumption and the incidence of vascular diseases and diabetes. Also to summarise the evidence on milk and dairy consumption and cancer reported by the World Cancer Research Fund and then to consider the relevance of milk and dairy consumption to survival in the UK, a typical Western community. Finally, published evidence on relationships with whole milk and fat-reduced milks was examined.

Methods: Prospective cohort studies of vascular disease and diabetes with baseline data on milk or dairy consumption and a relevant disease outcome were identified by searching MEDLINE, and reference lists in the relevant published reports. Meta-analyses of relationships in these reports were conducted. The likely effect of milk and dairy consumption on survival was then considered, taking into account the results of published overviews of relationships of these foods with cancer.

Results: From meta-analysis of 15 studies the relative risk of stroke and/or heart disease in subjects with high milk or dairy consumption was 0.84 (95% CI 0.76, 0.93) and 0.79 (0.75, 0.82) respectively, relative to the risk in those with low consumption. Four studies reported incident diabetes as an outcome, and the relative risk in the subjects with the highest intake of milk or diary foods was 0.92 (0.86, 0.97).

Conclusions: Set against the proportion of total deaths attributable to the life-threatening diseases in the UK, vascular disease, diabetes and cancer, the results of meta-analyses provide evidence of an overall survival advantage from the consumption of milk and dairy foods.

Key words: milk, dairy, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer, survival

Diet and heart disease

OK here is an interesting one. (It is epidemiology and as ever association doesn't equal causality, but it is interesting....hypothesis forming as my scientist friends tell me)


A systematic review of the evidence supporting a causal link between dietary factors and coronary heart disease.

What is associated with heart disease?

• intake of trans-fatty acids and foods with a high glycemic index or load

What isn't:

• total fat; alpha-linolenic acid; meat; eggs; and milk.

What is protective?

• intake of vegetables, nuts, and "Mediterranean" and high-quality dietary patterns (whatever they are - I think lots of meat and few fruits is high quality!)

What isn't:

• supplementary vitamin E and ascorbic acid (vitamin C);

So it sounds like: meat, eggs, milk, low carb, veggies and nuts. Don't worry about fat....don't take supplements?

milk as a sports drink.....

This looks interesting.....pdf available too

Milk: the new sports drink? A Review.

There has been growing interest in the potential use of bovine milk as an exercise beverage, especially during recovery from resistance training and endurance sports. Based on the limited research, milk appears to be an effective post-resistance exercise beverage that results in favourable acute alterations in protein metabolism. Milk consumption acutely increases muscle protein synthesis, leading to an improved net muscle protein balance. Furthermore, when post-exercise milk consumption is combined with resistance training (12 weeks minimum), greater increases in muscle hypertrophy and lean mass have been observed. Although research with milk is limited, there is some evidence to suggest that milk may be an effective post-exercise beverage for endurance activities. Low-fat milk has been shown to be as effective, if not more effective, than commercially available sports drinks as a rehydration beverage. Milk represents a more nutrient dense beverage choice for individuals who partake in strength and endurance activities, compared to traditional sports drinks. Bovine low-fat fluid milk is a safe and effective post exercise beverage for most individuals, except for those who are lactose intolerant. Further research is warranted to better delineate the possible applications and efficacy of bovine milk in the field of sports nutrition.

Unhealthy dogma means unhealthy food

Barry Groves has put up an interesting new article

Unhealthy dogma means unhealthy food: Milk and dairy produce is thought to cause cancer and other diseases. But it is only low-fat dairy which does; full-cream dairy actually protects us.

Today, it is increasingly difficult to buy fresh, wholesome food. What used to be healthy, no longer is. There are many examples: Meat is so lean today that Mrs. Beeton would regard it as being of very poor quality indeed. I normally buy meat straight from the farmer, but recently I tried some beef that I bought from a supermarket; it was dry, tasteless and tough. That doesn’t make it unhealthy, necessarily, but other changes brought about by ‘healthy’ dogma do. There are so many such examples that I’ll just give one in detail: modern milk

I have been thinking a bit about milk recently after a couple of other posts on blogs:

• Why going ‘dairy free’ may bring relief to kids who stop breathing in the night
• Book Review - Devil in the Milk
  

Milk is not in the normal "paleo" diet, but I find it hard to give up.