But I drink Milk, isn’t that enough to keep my bones strong?
NO! In fact, milk does not do the body good.
Consumption of dairy products, particularly at age 20 years, was associated with an increased risk of hip fracture in old age.
(“Case-Control Study of Risk Factors for Hip Fractures in the Elderly”. American Journal of Epidemiology)
The data does not support the hypothesis that higher consumption of milk or other food sources of calcium by adult women protects against hip or forearm fractures.
(The authors of the paper “Milk, dietary calcium, and bone fractures in women: a 12-year prospective study” published in the American Journal of Public Health. This study is based on data from the twelve-year-long Harvard Nurses’ Health study found that those who consumed the most calcium from dairy foods broke more bones than those who rarely drank milk. This study covered 77,761 women aged 34 to 59.)
Why Milk does not build do the body good:
- It is high in total calcium, but low in what scientists call bioavailable calcium. This means the calcium is there, but your body can’t use it.
- Pasteurized dairy is very alkaline which “locks up” the calcium in the milk, making it difficult to digest. If you don’t digest food properly, it’s not absorbed into your bloodstream and your body does not get the benefit from it. So, milk acidifies the body’s PH. This triggers a biological correction. Your body needs to neutralize the acid in milk, and guess what it uses to do this? You guessed it, calcium. Calcium is an excellent acid neutralizer. Our bodies pull the calcium out of our bones to neutralize the acid in the milk. So, drinking milk can actually cause a calcium deficit in our bones.
- Today’s milk is processed food. Milking cows are given antibiotics and most are also injected with a genetically engineered form of bovine growth hormone to increase milk production.
So, back to the story, we started with; it wasn’t pharmaceutical drugs or calcium supplements that prevented the tragedy in the elderly woman. My patient’s grandmother had lived on a farm her whole life. She ate vegetables she grew without pesticides and meat from the cattle that fed off the Oklahoma grass range they were raised on. She lived a very active life working on that farm. This contributed to her strong muscles and bones. She was living proof that you can develop and maintain strong bones that will sustain you through a long life. It just takes a proper diet and some exercise!
We would love to chat with you about how we can help you build strong bones. Contact us here.
