Hompes MethodPractitioner Training Level I

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LESSON FOUR

Part Three

Cow’s Milk

Cow’s Milk – Clinical Experience

• Getting people to eliminate cow’s milk from their diet for 60-90-days has consistently brought about excellent improvements in digestive, energy, skin and other symptoms. Cow’s milk is another of those foods that seems to cause problems for relatively large numbers of people.

Milk: My Clinical Experience

• Some people feel a lot better when they avoid milk for 60-90 days but others don’t feel any different. The response in any given person seems to depend on a number of factors:

– Individuality (genetics)

– Gluten sensitivity

– Stress levels

– Chronic digestive infections

– The specific type of milk being consumed

Milk – The Lowdown

• I’d like to use this lesson to help you understand the pros and cons of cow’s milk, and why I recommend my clients avoid it for a period of time from the beginning of their programme.

The Case Against Milk

• People who argue against milk consumption do so for a number of reasons. Let’s take a look at some of the main ones:

– Lactose intolerance

– Milk allergy

– Compatibility of cow’s milk with the human body

– Milk quality

Milk Intolerance & Allergy

• It is known that milk is capable of causing at least two different kinds of adverse responses: lactose intolerance and milk allergy.

Lactose Intolerance

• Lactose intolerance is not an allergic reaction. It occurs when people don’t have enough of the enzyme lactase to break down and digest the sugar –known as lactose – in cow’s milk.

Lactose Intolerance Symptoms

• Lactose intolerant individuals tend to struggle with:

– Bloating

– Excess gas

– Abdominal pain

– Loose stools

– Diarrhea

– Heartburn

Lactose Intolerance Controversy

• It is generally believed that once folk have lactose intolerance, they have it for life. But we now know that lactose intolerance is actually often an outcomeof other issues rather itself being the core problem. Thus, it may be ale to fix lactose intolerance in some people.

Lactose Intolerance Controversy

• You learned previously about the destructive power of gluten and how it has the potential to cause a great deal of intestinal damage. Lactase-producing cells in the intestinal lining are among those damaged by gluten.

Lactose Intolerance Controversy

• Folk may struggling with lactose intolerance because they have gluten intolerance first. On many occasions I have witnessed my clients’ ability to digest cow’s milk improve significantly after a period of time on a gluten-free diet.

Progesterone and Lactose Intolerance

• Ray Peat, Ph.D., theorises that progesterone is needed to manufacture lactase in the intestine. A deficiency in this hormone can result in the inability to manufacture adequate levels of lactase. Why would progesterone levels decline?

Progesterone, Digestion and Stress

• When the body is under “stress”, it manufactures stress hormones. One stress hormone – cortisol – is made directly from progesterone. Thus, the more cortisol is needed, the less progesterone there will generally be.

Progesterone & Chemical Contraceptives

• Any form of chemical contraceptive used by a woman will also knock out progesterone because these drugs prevent ovulation (Hompes Method Level II).

Symptoms of Low Progesterone

• In women, low progesterone is often responsible for menstrual symptoms such as PMS, cyclical headaches and migraines, mood swings, painful and lumpy breasts and period pains/menstrual cramps. Progesterone supports thyroid function, too, so low thyroid symptoms often go hand in hand with low progesterone.

Lactose Intolerance Revisited

• Lactose intolerance may actually be the result of:

– Gluten intolerance, or bad bugs, damaging the intestinal cells that make lactase.

– Stress –in all its forms - which reduces progesterone levels in the body.

– Chemical contraception in women, which knocks down progesterone.

Milk Allergy

• In addition to lactose intolerance, some folk also have allergic-type reactions to certain protein molecules in cow’s milk. One of the best known is a molecule called casein. Milk protein reactions reactions might happen in the gut, or in the blood once the proteins have been absorbed.

Milk Protein Reactions and “Leaky Gut”

• A “leaky gut”, caused by gluten, bad bugs, nutrient deficiencies and stress increases the likelihood of milk allergy. Here, undigested food particles “leak” through the gut wall, and when this happens they may cause allergic-type reactions and overwhelm the liver. Milk is one of the biggest offenders because folk are consuming so much of it!

Milk Protein Reactions

• Typical milk allergy symptoms might include:

– Stuffy nose and excessive mucus production

– Postnasal drip

– Headaches

– Fatigue

– Skin rashes such as eczema

– Joint and muscle pain

– Digestive symptoms

Compatibility

• Some experts argue that cow’s milk is not designed for human consumption and is incompatible with human physiology. This incompatibility may be one of the reasons why so many people react adversely when they consume cow’s milk.

Milk Quality

• Milk quality can vary widely, depending on how the cows have been raised. I have seen footage of cows being kept in appalling conditions and there is no doubt the quality of their milk is likely to be inferior to that produced by cows who happily roam around outdoors in the sunshine and on fresh green pastures!

Milk Quality

• According to Ray Peat PhD, if cows are fed extremely bad diets, for example with a very large amount of grain, allergens from the cow’s meal can reach the milk and affect humans who drink it. You are what they ate, as well as what you eat!

Milk Quality

• I have worked with clients who consumed two different kinds of milk (different brands/sources), where one caused symptoms and the other did not.

• Not all milk is created equal!

Milk Quality

• Most of the milk products sold in the supermarkets are pasteurized and sometimes homogenized. These processes render the products processed foods and can affect the way they interact with the immune system.

Milk Quality

• The nutritional status of milk is clearly affected by these processing techniques. When milk is processed, immune–supportive molecules, friendly bacteria, vitamins and minerals tend to be reduced, or become less available to the body.

The Case Against Milk - Summary

• Humans are not designed to drink cow’s milk.

• Milk should not be consumed after weaning.

• Many people are lactose intolerant.

• Milk proteins can also cause symptoms.

• The milk from unhealthy cows may contain other potential allergens.

• Commercially farmed dairy cattle have miserable lives and are fed incompatible foods.

• Some herds are given rBGH, which may have serious health implications for humans.

The Case For Milk

• Milk has been a staple in our diet for thousands of years. The work of Weston A. Price DDS, showed that people living in the Swiss Alps & the African Masai tribes consumed dairy as a main staple in their diet.

Milk’s Potential Benefits

• Ray Peat and his supporters say the following about cow’s milk:

– It is a complete food, contain fat, protein and sugar, which can help reduce inflammation.

– Has an excellent ratio of calcium to phosphorus.

– High quality of protein with thyroid and progesterone qualities.

– Has essential minerals and vitamins.

Milk’s Potential Benefits

• Milk contains plentiful amounts of the following nutrients:

– Vitamin A

– B vitamins

– Vitamin D

– Vitamin E

– It’s also high in saturated fat, which assiststhe body in eliminating PUFA’s.

Not All Milk Is The Same!

• Whether or not your client(s) reacts adversely to cow’s milk may depend on several factors. Milk may be a healthy, healing food for you, but a seriously damaging food for your next door neighbour.

Cow’s Milk Avoidance

• I generally ask all my clients to remove cow’s milk from their diet, along with gluten and other foods you will learn about in this lesson. I then suggest they reintroduce cow’s milk after 60-90 days and note the effect of:

– Avoiding it in the first place

– Reintroducing it

Cow’s Milk Alternatives

• When cow’s milk foods are not well tolerated they can often be replaced with high quality goat and sheep’s milk products. This is useful when people struggle with total “dairy” avoidance.

Cow’s Milk Alternatives

• Most supermarkets, farmer’s markets and a growing number of online retailers now offer these products. The transition from cow’s milk to the milk of these other animals is generally very straightforward. Goat’s milk, cheese and yogurt are generally available, though sheep’s products may be a little harder to come by.

Cow’s Milk Alternatives

• I d not recommend soya milk – it is toxic to the body in my opinion and should not be consumed as part of a healthy diet.

A Great Resource

• Organic dairy farmer Mark McAfee and Naturopathic doctor, David Getoff discuss all things milk, including organic dairy farming versus commercial farming practices. Highly recommended.

Excerpts From The DVD

• The food industry is looking for cheap, large volumes of milk. A cow is part of a business plan for burgers or milk, which means that some dairies have 15-20,000 cows. They feed the cows for optimal milk production, not for the cow’s health (sad).

Milk Standardization

• Most dairy farmers don’t have a creamery, which means they just dump off their milk to a centralized one. Many different dairies supply the same creamery, meaning that a single bottle of milk may be comprised of standardized milk from hundreds or even thousands of cows.

Raw Milk

• Raw milk simply means it hasn’t been pasteurized or homogenized.

• It has a shorter shelf life, so raw is not good for corporate requirements.

• In Mark McAfee’s pasture-fed, organic herd, not a single “bad bug” was detected in FDA testing (5yrs;24million servings - more than 1,000 tests – no pathogens!)

Raw Milk

• When pathogens (bad bugs) are added to healthy, raw milk intentionally and experimentally, these “bad bugs” die off rapidly due to the profound immune power of the milk components (lactoferrin, lysozyme, bacteria, colostrum and others).

Raw Milk

• Work conducted in the 1920s at the world famous Mayo Clinic demonstrated the benefits of raw milk in the treatment of a wide-variety of ailments, including leaky gut syndrome, gastroenteritis, arthritis and asthma.http://www.realmilk.com/milkcure.html

Raw Milk Quality

• Pasture-fed cows feed on lots of different grasses: rye, alfalfa, clover, bermuda grass, sedan grass and johnson grass (lots of biodiversity). The cows eat a “smorgasbord” of foods – they eat what they want when they need it. These cows are healthier; the rumen is a different place when the cows don’t have antibiotics and grains. The cows live much longer.

Pasteurization

• There are several types of pasteurization, where the milk is heated rapidly. This process kills most of the bacteria in the milk. Pasteurization doesn’t clean the milk: it just kills it (good bacteria as well):

– 140 degrees for 30min

– 161 degrees for up to 30sec (HTST)

– 280 degrees 3-5sec (UHT)

Pasteurization

• Pasteurization causes bacteria to lyse (split open, or explode), which releases a lot of the bacteria’s internal proteins. Our immune system may react against these proteins, causing allergy.

Pasteurization

• Pasteurized milk has high histamine levels, which can trigger asthma and other allergic/immune reactions. It also lots of dead bacteria as the bacteria are killed off (they explode!) in the processing.

My Recommendations

• My preferred order of preference for consuming dairy products is as follows:

1. Raw goat’s/sheep’s milk and cheese

2. Raw cow’s milk

3. Pasteurized goat’s/sheep’s milk

4. Pasteurized cow’s milk

Recommendations

“Avoid cow’s milk completely for 60-days, then reintroduce it in quite large quantities to see how you react. If you develop symptoms, cow’s milk may not be

optimal for you, but also be sure to experiment with raw versus pasteurized, and commercial versus organic

varieties (organic will usually be best).”

Milk and Individuality

• Remember, we are all unique individuals. Some people do absolutely fine on pasteurized products and may not do so great on raw dairy products. Encourage your clients to listen to their body.

Consider The Gut

• Remember that lactose intolerance, and even reactions to milk protein, may be happening because of damage to the gut caused by gluten, other bad foods, bad bugs or by nutrient and hormone deficiencies. As your digestion heals, and nutrient levels are rebuilt, milk may be tolerated much better.

Cow’s Milk Summary

• Milk, cheese, yogurts, etc. can be good or great foods as long as they’re well-tolerated.

• Proof is in the pudding: coach your clients to avoid it for a period of time and see how they get on.

• Fill the gap with goat and sheep milk alternatives.

• I recommend a gluten-free diet as well as the cow’s milk free diet.

Thank You!

• Thanks for taking the time to absorb this information. I appreciate your commitment! I hope you now have a firm understanding of some dangers associated with cow’s milk, particularly how and why it can interact with digestive infections to cause problems.