On one hand, milk is the stuff most of us were literally raised on – mother’s milk. (Although there are some significant differences between human breast milk and the milk you find in supermarkets.) Surely something that took us from a helpless bundle to the beginnings of a fully functioning human being couldn’t be bad for us right? Having grown up in dairy farming country, drinking milk like normal kids drink water (or soda these days), I certainly found it hard to wrap my mind around the idea milk might not be ideal nutrition.

The reasoning in support of milk is that in its raw form it is a complete nutritive source, providing almost equal parts protein, fat, and carbohydrates, as well as plenty of calcium as icing on the cake. Some would say it’s relatively natural since we drank mother’s milk as babies, but the amount of processing modern milk goes through leaves it in a far from natural state.

On the flipside, one of the biggest reasons you would want to exclude milk from your diet is if you are either allergic to casein or lactose intolerant:

Casein is one of the proteins in milk and has a similar structure to gluten. Many opponents of milk suggest casein has the same effects on our guts to those of gluten, destroying our intestinal lining and causing autoimmune diseases (and not just in celiac individuals). Symptoms of casein allergy include nasal and sinus congestion; skin rashes; swelling of the mouth, face, and throat; and anaphylaxis in more extreme cases. Some people are also allergic to the other protein in milk, whey, and experience similar symptoms.

Lactose is the sugar in milk, and there is evidence to suggest many of us are not adapted to digest lactose after age four. This also explains in part why babies can drink their mother’s milk without any problems, but then lactose intolerance shows up later in life. On the flipside there are also some of us who can consume milk with no ill effects. So how do you know which group you fall under? Well, some of us have pretty obvious reactions to lactose, such as rumbling tummy, explosive diarrhea, and cramping and bloating. But for many of us the reaction is much more subtle, so the easiest way to tell if you suspect you might be intolerant is to cut out milk for a month and see if your symptoms change.

The third main reason why many avoid milk is the effect it has on our insulin response. Milk is highly insulinogenic, meaning it stimulates your body to produce insulin. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you are and when you’re drinking your milk. If you’re a hard gainer, the Gallon of Milk a Day (GOMAD) program might be an option for you, purely from a body composition perspective. Drinking milk post-workout will spike your insulin, which assists transport of protein and glycogen to muscles in need. However, if you’re trying to lose body fat and drinking milk throughout the day without any workout stimulus, that insulin spike is storing energy as fat rather than your muscles. So if you’re trying to lose weight, milk might not be a good idea.

Similarly, if you have skin problems or acne, you might reconsider milk consumption. Milk not only increases the production of insulin, but is also linked with higher levels of insulin like growth factor (IGF-1), which in turn is linked to acne. The evidence is far from clear cut, but it’s growing, so if your skin isn’t looking as great as it could, milk might not be for you.

So, still not much clearer, are we? Well, to cut a long story short, if you’re not where you want to be either body composition or health wise, or even maybe if you are, it’s worth having a milk-free month and seeing how you feel at the end of it.

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As a writer, ignoring science news isn’t really an option for me, but what I can do is report the juicy stuff. And when it comes to milk, the scientific battle lines are being drawn. The showdown is about to commence.

You may wonder what all the fuss is about. After all, people have been drinking milk for a long time. Some people are lactose intolerant, which means they lack the enzymes for digesting the sugar found in milk, but for everyone else, milk should be fine, right? Well, in a recent study in the Nutrition Journal, one of the BioMed scientific journals, a research team from the University of Osnabruck in Germany questioned just that. The researchers hypothesized that, from an evolutionary perspective, milk is new to humans and may not be in our best interest as a food.

We all have heard the delightful argument that cow’s milk is for making baby cows grow very fast. Some people take this as good reason to avoid the calorie-dense liquid, but others, often athletes, see its virtues as a nutrient-dense, high-protein beverage. Athletes who are looking to gain weight tend to be especially favorable toward milk consumption.

The German research team determined a major way that milk helps us gain weight is by signaling mTORC1, an enzyme that supports growth. Milk also has microRNA signaling agents that prevent growth from stopping. This is all well and good when you’re a baby and you grow rapidly, but as an adult human, the researchers postulated, it’s the foundation for numerous diseases.

One of these diseases, and perhaps the most serious of the bunch, is hallmarked by uncontrolled growth: cancer. The researchers also pointed to other possible diseases as well, not the least of which are diabetes, hypertension and Alzheimer’s. The mTORC1 enzyme may trigger any or all of these, and milk could exacerbate the process.

On the other side of the coin, researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand published a paper a few weeks later in Nutrition and Metabolism, another BioMed journal. This study touted milk’s ability to eliminate disease. The team performed a literature review, citing mounting evidence that milk and milk proteins, like whey and casein, decrease metabolic risk factors like hypertension, dyslipidemia, and hyperglycemia, and may even improve body composition in a way that improves health in the long run.

As you can see, scientists are taking a stand on both sides of the fence. There are good reasons to support or reject the consumption of milk for health or athletic purposes on both sides. Which side is right has yet to be seen. It is very possible that both are right. Perhaps metabolic diseases decline with milk, but mTORC1 triggered diseases increase. What’s important is which side wins out in the end.

Until this dramatic scientific standoff comes to a conclusive end, consume milk as you normally would, as long as it’s either in moderation or not at all. For those on the GOMAD (Gallon of Milk a Day) diet, you may want to rethink your nutritional strategy.

References:

1. Bodo C Melnik, et. al., “Milk is not just food but most likely a genetic transfection system activating mTORC1 signaling for postnatal growth,” Nutrition Journal 2013, 12:103.

2. Robin A McGregor, et. al., “Milk protein for improved metabolic health: a review of the evidence,” Nutrition & Metabolism 2013, 10:46.

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Your body can protect itself against this damage, and in the first line of defense are the antioxidants you hear so much about. Antioxidants can neutralize the free radicals and mitigate the damage, and they do a pretty good job of it. Here’s the kicker though, if you exercise chronically – that is to say, if you exercise on a regular basis over time – the constant assault of free radicals and peroxides in your system drains your antioxidants. As they protect you, they are depleted, and this continual depletion wears your defenses down over time, like a river carving out a canyon.

There are answers though. Much like repairing exercise damaged muscle with the protein you consume, a diet and supplements high in antioxidants can help maintain your reserves. A recent study published by BioMed Central reviewed colostrum as one supplement in particular that may help protect you against the damaging side-effects of exercise.

Colostrum is a kind of milk produced in all kinds of mammals, but the type you supplement with comes from cows. Yup, it’s cow milk. But not just any cow milk, it’s a special kind of milk a mother first produces for her child. It’s lower in fat, higher in protein, and loaded with a baby’s first nutrients – including antioxidants. This is super milk we’re talking about.

In the study, the researchers compared the antioxidant levels of mice supplemented with colostrum with those that weren’t. In each group, some of the mice exercised 30 minutes each day and some did not. As was expected, the mice that did not consume the supplement and did no exercise had no real change over time. Those that exercised and didn’t take colostrum had a drop off in antioxidants. And that drop off continued throughout the 42 day trial, getting more and more severe as time went on. The mice that took colostrum and did nothing had the reverse effect. Over the trial their antioxidants went up and up, and so did their ability to protect themselves from damage. Now here’s the fun part. The group that exercised and supplemented with colostrum increased their antioxidant levels even more over time than the group that did no work on the supplement. Perhaps it’s like carb loading, and when you deplete your antioxidants, they begin to absorb better and are stored in higher quantities. Antioxidant loading. I like it.

There are many antioxidants, and colostrum isn’t the only supplement you can take to get the protective benefits. Whether you supplement or focus on foods high in antioxidants is up to you, but if you work out on a regular basis it’s a great idea. The researchers noted that exercise alone has a beneficial impact on health, but there are even more substantial life extending benefits beyond just exercising when you supplement with antioxidants.

References:

1. Mahenderan Appukutty, et. al., “Colostrum supplementation protects against exercise – induced oxidative stress in the skeletal muscle in mice,” BMC Research Notes, 5:649 (2012)

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