Is it time to get off the trendy nut milk . . . and back on to a PINTA?

. . . or why experts now say full-fat milk isn’t a demon drink after all — and could be just what you and your child need

Full-fat milk bad, low-fat good — that’s been the health mantra for decades and many have dutifully followed that prescription, or given up milk completely, in the belief that it protects against cardiovascular disease and helps keep the pounds off.

Sales of milk have dropped by £240 million over two years, according to research for the Grocer published last December, with many people swapping to plant-based drinks such as almond and soya varieties.

fifteen years ago these made up just 5 per cent of the market. they’re now predicted to reach 20 per cent by 2021.

But have we got it all wrong? New research suggests milk does not increase the risk of diabetes or heart disease, nor will it make you fat. furthermore, low-fat milk, instead of fullfat, may even raise the risk of Parkinson’s.

Meanwhile, children who have been raised on milk alternatives such as soya are likely to be shorter, it’s been reported. and last week there was an Eu court ruling that these products can’t even be called ‘milks’ at all.

Milk’s reputation has had more swings than a political opinion poll, it seems. Years ago, it was regarded as such a superfood that it was supplied free to schoolchildren. It was seen as vital for growing strong bones and teeth and provided a valuable package of nutrients, including protein, fat, vitamins and minerals.

But from around the early Eighties its reputation shifted, with concerns that the saturated fat in milk could raise the risk of heart disease and lead to people piling on pounds, because fat has more calories per gram than carbohydrates.

today, the official advice is to cut back on full-fat milk. last year, Public Health England reduced the number of calories recommended to come from dairy almost by half, to 200 for men and 160 for women. that’s less than what you would get from one medium latte, with the milk providing 240 calories.

People have also been put off the drink more recently because of the rise in milk allergies, where the immune system reacts to a protein in milk, both regular and low-fat.

this is a controversial area because many who say they react badly to milk don’t show up as having an allergy when tested; or they may have a milk intolerance, where they lack the digestive enzyme lactase, which is needed to break down lactose (milk sugar).

for others, the very idea of farming and drinking cow’s milk is anathema.

HAS MILK BEEN WRONGLY VILIFIED?

If all this has led to a steady decline in milk consumption, in the past few months its future has been looking brighter, for new studies suggest fears about heart risk and weight gain were unfounded.

a major study has found no link between milk (full or low-fat) or other dairy foods (such as yoghurt and cheese) and any sort of heart disease. this research, which was published last month in the European Journal of Epidemiology, involved 29 studies carried out over 35 years.

‘You need to be careful about applying these findings to the risks of fat generally,’ says Rebecca McManamon, of the British Dietetic association. ‘the study was specifically about fat in dairy products including milk, though the fact is milk hasn’t got that much fat but a lot of nutritional benefits.

‘this new study, however, could be very useful in reassuring people who might be thinking of giving up dairy because of the possible link with heart disease.’

Milk might also help protect against diabetes. another large study — involving 3,333 people over 15 years — found that those with the highest levels of dairy fat in their blood had about a 50 per cent lower risk of developing diabetes than those with the lowest levels.

the research, published in the journal Circulation last year, seems to reflect the fact that people on low-fat diets tend to fill up on sugar and carbohydrates.

‘ these can give us a much higher risk of diabetes in the long run,’ said the lead researcher, Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and epidemiologist and dean at tufts university in Massachusetts. the concern with dairy is that it’s more calorific gram for gram. But is this worry misplaced?

a study published last year by the american Society for Nutrition, which tracked more than 18,000 women of normal weight, found they were less likely to become overweight or obese if they had been consuming full-fat dairy. low-fat milk offered no protection.

HOW IT MIGHT STOP WEIGHT GAIN

So wHat is going on here? one idea is that the fat simply makes you feel fuller.

another theory is that it’s due to the way the calcium in dairy reacts with the fat.

Research by Professor arne astrup, head of the human nutrition department at the Royal Veterinary and agricultural university in Copenhagen, Denmark, has found that calcium binds on to the fat and allows more of it to be excreted. this doesn’t happen with low-fat milks.

and now it seems skimmed and semi-skimmed milk may be linked to serious disease.

Drinking it more than once a day raises the risk of developing Parkinson’s by 39 per cent compared with people who have it less than once a week, according to research published in the journal Neurology.

there was no raised risk with full-fat milk.

the researchers at the Harvard t. H. Chan School of Public Health analysed approximately 25 years of data on 80,736 women and 48,610 men. the reason for the results is not clear.

But to put this increase in perspective, it should be noted that the risk was small to begin with — about one in 150 of those drinking full-fat, compared with one in 100 on low-fat.

ALMOND MILK’S LINK TO HEIGHT

hEAlth-CoNSCIouS parents have been switching from cow’s milk altogether because of worries about milk allergy, intolerance or other health risks.

however, researchers at St Michael’s hospital in toronto, Canada, recently found that children drinking around three cups of either soya or almond milk a day were on average half an inch shorter by the age of three.

this could be because these drinks, unless fortified, provide only a quarter of the protein and fat of cows’ milk.

Cows’ milk offers a cocktail of proteins, fat and various hormones, along with useful amounts of vitamin A and the B vitamins, plus a variety of minerals. All this is designed for just one purpose — to make small, newborn animals grow into something much bigger.

WHAT ABOUT THE CANCER RISK?

A CRuCIAl, though not widely known, element of the milk package is a hormone called Insulin growth Factor 1 (IgF-1) — the name tells you what it does.

What worries researchers such as Jeffrey holly, an endocrinologist at the School of Clinical Sciences at Bristol university, is the long-term effect of continuing to drink milk after normal growth has stopped, because it means that your IgF-1 levels will remain raised.

It’s a highly controversial suggestion, but Professor holly claims: ‘later on in life, this raised level could be helping cancer cells to grow. My research, as well as studies from harvard, have shown that increased amounts of IgF-1 are linked with a greater risk for breast and prostate cancer.’ Professor holly was involved in a study on children in Iceland — published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2012 — which found that drinking milk often during adolescence was linked with advanced prostate cancer.

Another study by researchers at the harvard School of Public health, published in the Journal of Nutrition in 2013, found that drinking low-fat and regular milk had different effects on the risk of prostate cancer.

low-fat was linked with nonaggressive prostate tumours, while full-fat was associated with fatal prostate cancer.

however, this research does not prove milk was the cause. the harvard team later suggested the link might be more likely due to the increase in calcium, rather than milk itself. Professor holly admits the evidence isn’t conclusive and says there are still unknowns, but he’s been sufficiently convinced by his own work to stop drinking milk. Cancer Research uK says: ‘ there is no strong evidence linking dairy products to any type of cancer, though there is evidence they could reduce the risk of bowel cancer.’ this may be because dairy increases the production of various beneficial compounds made by gut bacteria, such as butyrate, which reduces inflammation and can slow down tumour growth.

Another theory is that the calcium in milk helps to mop up the iron found in red meat, which can promote cancer growth.

‘Milk is very complex and there may be factors that reduce the risk,’ says Professor holly. ‘But I would certainly advise anyone with a diagnosis of breast or prostate cancer to cut it out of their diet.

‘ For children and teenagers, however, having juices and sugary carbonated drinks instead of milk has been a disaster.’

DO YOU LACK THE MILK GENE?

PRoFESSoR holly agrees that this could be a reason to encourage children to drink milk until they

have stopped growing. This might particularly benefit young girls who, experts say, aren’t drinking enough. But, according to Professor Holly, for others, milk is not essential.

Indeed, being able to drink cows’ milk is, in evolutionary terms, a new development for humans. Even now, about half the world’s population, especially in Asia and Africa, can’t do it.

This dates back around 12,000 years to when humans learnt to domesticate cattle. Most at the time would have felt ill if they’d tried milk, but a few could stomach this new, super source of nutrition.

These were the ‘mutants’ who had an abnormal version of the gene for handling lactose, the sugar in milk. The standard version of the gene produces an enzyme called lactase which, with the help of microbes in the gut, breaks down lactose: this allows newborns to drink their mother’s milk. The normal lactase gene stops working once you’ve grown, but the mutant version keeps going, and the benefit of being able to access this extra nutrition supply allowed the gene to spread.

Lactose intolerance is considered a disorder and abnormal, ‘but until the arrival of the cattle herders, almost everyone was lactose intolerant,’ says Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College in London.

Most people in the West are beneficiaries of the herder mutation, but around 20 per cent suffer from lactose intolerance and associated bloating and stomach cramps, he suggests.

‘It’s difficult to diagnose, so the true rate is unknown. What we do know is that many people have a perceived intolerance to lactose. The concern is that this can lead to avoiding all milk products and the possibility of calcium deficiency.’

Vegans, who avoid animal products, are confident of being able to replace the benefits of milk with supplements.

‘Plant milk that has been fortified with calcium is a really rich source and provides the same amount as cows’ milk,’ says Heather Russell, a dietitian at the Vegan Society. ‘The protein in soya is of similar quantity and quality to cows’ milk.’

So it probably comes down to a personal balancing act. For children, milk is certainly better than soft drinks and mainstream experts would say it’s better than plantbased ‘milks’. The fat itself doesn’t seem to pose much of a risk so they might well choose full-fat over semi-skimmed. As for adults, there’s no firm advice about how long to keep drinking it.

Perhaps it all comes down to that same old message: everything in moderation.