Diabetes rates are reaching epidemic proportions in developed countries where junk diets and obesity is common. Diabetes is a serious and debilitating disease caused by the body’s failure to control blood sugar levels. This is referred to as ‘insulin resistance’.

According to a 2007 study by the University of Cardiff in the UK, drinking a pint of milk a day may protect men against diabetes and heart disease. But upon closer examination of the research, the study has turned out to be flawed and without merit.

Jon Barron of The Baseline of Health Foundation makes the following five comments on this study:

1. The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. It looked at how insulin resistance was affected by dairy milk consumption. A total 2,375 men were tracked between the ages of 45 and 59 over a 20-year period to see whether eating dairy products reduces the risk of insulin resistance. According to the study, the more milk they consumed, the lower the risk.

2. In fact, although the study tracked a decreased risk of insulin resistance with increased dairy consumption, it found little actual correlation between dairy consumption and the incidence of diabetes itself. There were only 7 more cases of diabetes among the lowest consumers of dairy versus the highest. The incidence of heart disease was not tracked.

3. Also, people who had diabetes at the start of the study were excluded from the results so that we don’t know if their condition improved or deteriorated while drinking milk. That would be significant information in determining the overall health value of dairy when it comes to metabolic syndrome.

4. Furthermore, the study only references the amount of milk and dairy products people were consuming, nothing else. If they’re drinking more milk, they’re drinking less of something else. Conversely, if they’re drinking less milk, they’re drinking more of something else. If that something else is soda pop, sugared energy drinks or coffee with sugar, that can be a major factor in the onset of insulin resistance.

5. In other words, the so-called health benefits attributed to milk in the study may have nothing to do with milk at all. They may instead be a reflection of lowered consumption of more harmful highly-sugared beverages. It sounds likely that the men drinking milk were eating an overall better diet, but the study doesn’t tell us either way. In any case, without that information, the study is meaningless.

When you look at the research into diabetes there are many studies (too numerous to mention here) linking milk consumption with a higher incidence of diabetes, and there are virtually no studies suggesting that milk prevents diabetes.

The author Sally Fallon makes the following comment in her book Nurturing Traditions (1999):

‘There is some evidence that pasteurization alters milk lactase (a form of sugar), making it more readily absorbable. This and the fact that pasteurized milk puts an unnecessary strain on the pancreas to produce digestive enzymes, may explain why milk consumption has been linked to diabetes’.

This is confirmed by other research. It is known that lactose undergoes condensation and molecular changes as a result of heat treatment. Lactose in milk feeds glucose into the bloodstream, and this in turn can over time create insulin resistance.

The risk of diabetes is even greater for organic milk consumers. This is so because most organic milk (over 80 percent) is sold as UHT milk. In the USA virtually all organic milk is UHT! The ultra high pasteurization temperature of UHT is double that of regular milk. This means that organic UHT milk is more likely to overburden the bloodstream with glucose, increasing the risk of diabetes.

See below for details of a new book ‘Organic Milk Myth’ which explains this in more detail with supporting evidence.

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