Running Head: DAIRY AND ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH

Dairy and its Effect on Health

Cheyanne Rain Morris
Chico State University

DAIRY AND ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH

When a woman gives birth, her breasts fill up with milk, and she nurses her child. The milk turns,
on average, an 8-pound infant into a 30-pound toddler. Breast milk is designed to allow a child to have
the biggest growth spirt in its entire life. Once the child is done with this growth spirt, the milk dries up,
and the child never drinks breast milk again. Cows do the same thing, but their milk is designed to turn,
on average, a 90 pound calf into a 2,000 pound cow. It allows the cow to almost double its birth weight
in forty-seven days. Humans are the only species that drinks milk as an adult, and are also the only
species that drinks other species milk (Barnouin). Our bodies dont know how to break down dairy, and
it also increases peoples body fat, increases risk of diseases, and depletes calcium from our bones.
Over seventy-five percent of the world is lactose intolerant. Lactose is a sugar found in milk and
other dairy products, while lactase is an enzyme that lines the walls of the stomach and intestines. The
only way to break down the lactose sugars as it enters a persons body, is to have these lactase enzymes
present to help break it down. When a child is breast feeding, lactase enzymes are present in the
stomach, and after the child is done weaning, ninety percent of these enzymes go away. Our bodies are
not naturally meant to break down lactose sugars as we reach into adulthood, and therefore, are unable
to naturally process the sugars. Undigested lactose in the small intestines act like an osmotic agent,
causing water and electrolytes to be pulled into the intestines, which results in diarrhea, bloating, and
gassiness (lactase). The other twenty-five percent of people that are not lactose intolerant actually
have a genetic mutation where the lactase enzymes are still present in the body through adulthood and
can break down the lactose sugar (lactase).
Not only do our bodies not know how to break down lactose sugars, but milk and other dairy
products actually lead to a huge increase in body fat. One study that proved this statement was about

the correlation between dairy consumption and changes in body weight and waist
circumference. A group of nutritionists did a study where they took a large group of French

DAIRY AND ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH

adults (ranging from normal-weight to over-weight males and females) and had them eat
different types of dairy products, such as cheese, milk, and yogurt. Throughout the study, they
discovered that in overweight men, changes in weight and waist circumference were inversely
associated with the consumption of dairy products especially that of milk and yogurt. There
was no relation with cheese intake. Increases in weight were found in over-weight and normalweight woman with the consumption of milk and yogurt. After a careful analysis, they found a
trend toward increased weight in normal-weight woman after high dairy consumption. The
conclusions of the experiment stated that the relation of dairy consumption with changes in
weight and waist circumference may differ according to sex, initial body-weight status, and
type of dairy products. The association of dairy products observed in men was not technically
explained by dairy intakes, which could conclude that other components of dairy or dietary
patterns associated with dairy may help to explain the observed observations (Bertrais).
Another recent study tried to find the correlation between dairy consumption on weight and
body composition in adults. This article was about summarizing the published evidence from
randomized controlled clinical trials regarding the effect of dairy consumption on weight, body
fat mass, lean mass, and waist circumference. There were sixteen different trials of this
experiment, a group of people with a high dairy intake, and a group of people with little to no
dairy intake, and several control groups. The results led to an actualization that overall an
increased dairy intake resulted in greater increase in fat mass, gain in lean mass, and an
increase in waist circumference. In the diets that had a low dairy intake resulted in greater
weight loss, greater reduction in body fat mass, and a gain in body lean mass. An increase dairy
consumption without energy restriction might not have a significant change in weight or body

DAIRY AND ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH

mass, but a diet where there is an energy restriction significantly affects weight, body fat mass,
lean mass, and waist circumferences compared to the usual weight loss diets (Abargouei).
Some people might argue that drinking chocolate milk after working out is supposed to be the
best thing to drink as a recovery aid. One study that disproved this statement was where they
compared chocolate milk with a carbohydrate replacement drink as a recovery aid after intense exercise
from trained cyclists. After several trials of the trained cyclists using chocolate milk as their recovery aid
for over a week, they switched to a normal carbohydrate replacement drink. After doing several trials
with this, the results ended up being the same. The study concluded that there was no actual difference
between drinking chocolate milk after a workout from drinking a normal, non-dairy recovery drink
(Bishop).
Dairy products increase body fat, but they also increase risks to different types of diseases. A
recent study showed that dairy products can contribute to an increase in energy, calcium, and

protein, but they also contain saturated fatty acids which, with high consumption, lead to
cardio vascular disease, coronary artery disease, and diabetes. The article stated that the
increased consumption of milk or dairy products is inversely related to incidence of cardio
vascular disease. The consumption of dairy products shows characteristics of the metabolic
syndrome, which leads to risk factors including dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, increased blood
pressure, and abdominal obesity, which together increase the risk of diabetes and cardio
vascular disease. Cheese does not have the negative effects on blood lipids solely by the
content of saturated fat. Yogurt also has probiotic effects, but leads to weight gain, obesity, and
cardiovascular disease.

DAIRY AND ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH

Milk and other dairy products also deplete the calcium from your bones. Contrary to the myth
that milk gives your body high levels of calcium, people actually barely absorb calcium from cows milk,
and it increases calcium loss from bones. When milk enters the body, it acidifies the pH level when it is
consumed. Calcium is an excellent acid neutralizer, so the part of our bodies that carries the most
calcium, our bones, actually is utilized to help neutralize the acid, which decreases the level of calcium in
our bones. Osteoporosis, a medical condition in which the bones become brittle and fragile from loss of
tissue, as a result of calcium deficiency, is not apparent in non-cattle drinking countries. The countries
that people do not drink milk in do not have a single case of Osteoporosis. A twelve-year-long Harvard
Nurses Health Study found that those who consumed the most calcium from dairy foods broke more
bones than those who rarely drank milk. This was a broad study based on 77,761 women aged 34 to 59
years of age (Feskanich).
Through several studies and research, dairy products ultimately lead to a huge increase in body
fat, increases risk of diseases, and depletes the calcium from peoples bones. Naturally, humans do not
know how to break down the lactose sugars found in dairy after the age of weaning. There are dairy
products that have little to none lactose sugars, such as certain types of cheese, as mentioned above.
There are many studies proving that there is a direct correlation to dairy consumption and certain types
of diseases such as diabetes, coronary artery disease, and osteoporosis. There are many positive effects
that dairy can have on a persons body, but the negative effects ultimately counteract the positives.

DAIRY AND ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH

6
References

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Bertrais, S., Chat-Yung, S., Czernichow, S., Galan, P., Hercberg, S., Kesse, E., Peneau, S., &
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