Dairy is Bad For Your Health

I look forward to a good response! I will list the problems with dairy below in no particular order. Lactose Intolerance Dairy is comprised primarily of fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and water. One of these primary carbohydrates is lactose. As infants, mammals can process the lactose using an enzyme secreted from their intestinal villi called lactase. This breaks the lactose down into two simple sugars: glucose and galactose. Most people in the world (approx. 65%) have a drastically reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy, and increasingly so as the get older, resulting in the condition known as lactose intolerance. Mammals normally have a decrease in the gene expression which results in lactase production after infancy, as this enzyme is no longer required to digest mother's milk . http://www.google.com...). Some people groups, such as those of European decent, have inherited a change in a regulatory element which regulates this gene expression, allowing for sustained production of lactase in their small intestine (. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov...). For much of the world, lactose will cause gastrointestinal problems (. http://www.medbio.info...). For this reason alone, dairy is bad for the health of at least 65% of the world. Cardiovascular DiseaseSaturated fat is well known to be correlated with cardiovascular diseases (. http://www.plosmedicine.org...). Dairy products are typically rife with saturated fat which raise the level of LDL (bad) cholesterol in your blood resulting in an increased risk for cardiovascular disease (. http://www.heart.org...).CancerDairy consumption is strongly correlated with prostate cancer. While several mechanisms are possible, the correlation remains clear (. http://www.pcrm.org...). "Consumption of dairy products has also been linked to higher risk for various cancers, especially to cancers of the reproductive system. Most significantly, dairy product consumption has been linked to increased risk for prostate and breast cancers. The danger of dairy product consumption as it relates to prostate and breast cancers is most likely related to increases in insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which is found in cow’s milk. Consumption of milk and dairy products on a regular basis has been shown to increase circulating levels of IGF-1. Perhaps the most convincing association between IGF-1 levels and cancer risk is seen in studies of prostate cancer. Case-control studies in diverse populations have shown a strong and consistent association between serum IGF-1 concentrations and prostate cancer risk. One study showed that men with the highest levels of IGF-1 had more than four times the risk of prostate cancer, compared with those who had the lowest levels. In the Physicians Health Study, tracking 21,660 participants for 28 years, researchers found an increased risk of prostate cancer for those who consumed ≥2.5 servings of dairy products per day as compared with those who consumed ≤0.5 servings a day. This study, which is supported by other findings,also shows that prostate cancer risk was elevated with increased consumption of low-fat milk, suggesting that too much dairy calcium, and not just the fat associated with dairy products, could be a potential threat to prostate health. In addition to increased levels of IGF-1, estrogen metabolites are considered risk factors for cancers of the reproductive system, including cancers of the breasts, ovaries, and prostate. These metabolites can affect cellular proliferation such that cells grow rapidly and aberrantly, which can lead to cancer growth. Consumption of milk and dairy products contributes to the majority (60-70 percent) of estrogen intake in the human diet. In a large study including 1,893 women from the Life After Cancer Epidemiology Study who had been diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer, higher amounts of high-fat dairy product consumption were associated with higher mortality rates. As little as 0.5 servings a day increased risk significantly. This is probably due to the fact that estrogenic hormones reside primarily in fat, making the concern most pronounced for consumption of high-fat dairy products. The consumption of dairy products may also contribute to development of ovarian cancer. The relation between dairy products and ovarian cancer may be caused by the breakdown of the milk sugar lactose into galactose, a sugar which may be toxic to ovarian cells. In a study conducted in Sweden, consumption of lactose and dairy products was positively linked to ovarian cancer. A similar study, the Iowa Women’s Health Study, found that women who consumed more than one glass of milk per day had a 73 percent greater chance of developing ovarian cancer than women who drank less than one glass per day" (. http://www.pcrm.org...).While this surely is not an exhaustive list of potential healthhazards faced by those who consume dairy, what I have included so far should be adequate for this debate's discussion.