Are milk and milk products harmful?

Years ago, many families specially took their children in the summer to the village, to grandma’s, so that they could drink freshly milked cow’s milk.

Today, everyone knows that milk is rich in calcium and it must be drunk to have healthy bones.

But here it is given that things are very different: in those who drink a lot of milk, bones are weaker and life is shorter.

This truly shocking discovery by Swedish scientists is very hard to believe. But there is no reason to doubt its truth. Scientists observed 100,000 people consuming milk, including 61,000 women and 45,000 men.

The women were observed over a period of 20 years. During that time, 15,500 of them died, and 17,000 had brittle bones. The men were followed for about 11 years, during which time more than 10,000 of them died and 5,000 suffered from weak bones and suffered fractures.

And now comes the most striking – among women who drank no less than three glasses of milk a day, fractures occurred almost twice as often. Scientists believe that each glass of milk increases the risk of death by 15% in women and by 3% in men.

Milk, of course, is not accidentally recommended for strengthening the bones. It contains not only calcium, but also phosphorus and vitamin D – they work in unison, increasing the density of bone tissue. But what is the reason that these merits remain in the background?

According to scientists, this is the substance galactose. Sugar, which has recently been considered one of the most harmful. Even a very small amount of galactose used in an animal experiment has been shown to cause accelerated aging of the body and brain and lead to earlier death.

In the disease galactosemia – a congenital disease in which the amount of this type of sugar in the blood increases constantly, brain damage develops already in childhood, senile diseases such as cataracts and osteoporosis.

There are many studies that show that products rich in galactose seriously increase the risk of ovarian cancer in women.

Galactose is mostly found in milk – one glass contains about 5 grams, or one teaspoon. How did this sugar get there when we know that milk contains a completely different type of sugar called lactose, or milk sugar?

The thing is that lactose in the intestines breaks down into glucose and galactose. There are still quite a few products that contain this harmful sugar, but it is in much smaller quantities than in milk.

How to live without milk, since it is so important and useful? Quite simple. Instead of milk, use dairy products, primarily yogurt. All useful substances are preserved, and harmful substances are reduced to a large extent.

During fermentation, the bacteria destroy much of the galactose as well as the glucose. When producing curds and cheeses these substances remain in the excess whey. So it is better to consume milk in processed form.

The debate about the benefit of milk in protecting against breaks and brittle bones is not new. The main debate is whether it is necessary to drink enough milk at any age or only in the childhood years, when the bones are formed.

But the scientists’ conclusion about the negative impact of galactose puts this problem in a new perspective and, undoubtedly, puts the discussion on whether the harmful effects of fresh milk are only due to galactose.

That is why it is best to replace it with lactic-acid products, which differ from milk not only in the reduced content of galactose, but they also contain bacteria and lactic acid that improve

strong>gut microflora.

This, in turn, positively affects metabolism, antioxidant status and longevity. It is known that the tendency to gain weight also depends on the bacteria in the gut.