Heather Bedard, C.H.E.
One of the greatest risks of dairy intake comes in the form of increased risk of type-1 diabetes. The way this works is that the amino acid chains of one protein closely resemble the amino acid chains of another. Surprisingly, some partially digested food proteins have amino acid chains that closely resemble those that comprise tissues and organs in the body. If these proteins enter the blood stream through what we call leaky gut, antibodies are produced. This is a normal immune response! Leaky gut is a nonscientific term for what occurs when the lining of the stomach is damaged and permeable. When this happens, and the partially digested food proteins enter the blood stream, the antibodies attack these amino acid chains and the amino acid chains in the tissues and organs that are similar. Note that these amino acid chains do not have to be identical, just similar enough to be recognized by the antibodies as the same.
What does this have to do with cow’s milk? Cow’s milk was not designed to be consumed by humans. It has proteins in it that are made for a baby cow! Because of this, some children do not digest cow’s milk properly which results in partially digested protein. If they have impaired GI health due to environmental factors, poor eating habits, antibiotics etc…this increased gut permeability allows passage of the proteins into their blood stream. The immune system recognizes these as foreign invaders and produces antibodies. Do you know what organ these fragments resemble?? You guessed it! The pancreas cells that produce insulin. The immune system begins to attack these cells as well, eventually resulting in type-1 diabetes.
In a study done in 1992, blood samples were taken from 142 diabetic children and controls who did not have diabetes. 100% of diabetic children had elevated levels of antibodies to cow’s milk proteins; none of the controls had elevated antibody levels.[1] There are many other studies that have confirmed these results.[2],[3]
There are some things that increase a child’s risk of juvenile diabetes. Those include: genetically susceptible children who are weaned early, fed cow’s milk formulas, and those that have leaky guts. In a U.S. study, genetically susceptible children who consume cow’s milk have 11.3 times greater risk of developing juvenile diabetes. You can put this into perspective when you understand that this represents a risk greater than that a smoke will develop lung cancer.[4]
Other risk factors include: high birth weight and rapid weight gain during infancy and early exposure to cereal grains.
If you have a baby, some of the best steps that you could take, in my opinion, would be to breast feed for at least a year, do not introduce dairy as this is the first foreign protein to which many infants are exposed, and delay exposure to cereal grains.
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[1] Karjalainen J, Martin J, Knip M et al, “A bovine albumin peptide as a possible trigger of insulin-dependent Diabetes Mellitus.” NEJM. 327(1992):302-307
[2] Akerblom HK, Knip M. “Putative environmental factors and Type 1 diabetes.” Diabetes/Metabolism Revs 14 (1998):31-67
[3] Naik RG and Palmer JP. “Preservation of beta-cell function in Type-1 Diabetes.” Diabetes Rev. 7 (1999):154-182
[4] Kostraba J, Cruickshanks K, Lawler-Heavner et al, “Early exposure to cow’s milk and solid foods in infancy, genetic predisposition, and risk of IDDM.”
Diabetes 42 (1993):288-295
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