The dairy industry is at it again

I recently read of a new study claiming that obese adults can eat four servings of dairy every day and lose as many pounds as those with a low-dairy diet.

Before reading any further, I said to myself, "Bet this is another Zimmel study".

Sure enough, a few inches down in the copy:
Prof Michael Zemel, co-author of the research, said the findings were "important to help us gain further information about the dairy/weight loss connection".

So here's the deal: Zemel has been doing these dairy industry-funded studies for years. And his studies always seem to show that dairy helps with weight loss. It was Zemel research that was behind those ludicrous televisions ads showing impossibly thin and fit women dancing around eating fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt and claiming that dairy was responsible for their weight loss ("research shows.. blah blah blah"). Virtually every Zemel study is funded in whole or part by the dairy industry.

And dairy always comes up smelling like a rose.

Imagine that.

Never mind that out of about 35 clinical trials on the link between dairy and body weight since 1989, 31 of them have shown no relationship between dairy and weight loss.

Never mind that a recent study of 155 women aged 18-30, carried out by scientists from Purdue University, concluded that increased consumption of dairy calcium was no more likely to encourage weight gain or loss.


And never mind that the latest Zemel study put the obese subjects on a reduced calorie diet plus exercise along with their four glasses of milk. Heck, with that research design I could put M&M's in their diet and everyone would lose weight. Does that mean the M&M's are a weight loss food?


Sure if you substitute some milk for 32 ounces of Coca-Cola you might see some benefits. But does that make milk a magic bullet for weight loss?

Funny how these same folks who love to tout soy because it's part of the "heart healthy" Japanese diet we're supposed to be imitating seem to forget that the Japanese don't drink milk.

Those of you who've read my "150 Healthiest Foods on Earth" know that I'm no fan of pasteurized, homogenized milk (though I'm a huge fan of raw, organic milk, which unfortunately is hard to find). And while I don't think milk will kill you, I hate the fact that the media continues to report these biased studies that are designed with one purpose in mind: to sell you dairy (specifically milk) as a necessary and essential part of every diet and to convince you that you need to be drinking three glasses a day or you're putting your health at risk.

That's simply not true.

And don't get me started on the troubling connection between milk and prostate cancer or milk and teenage acne.

Do we need calcium? Of course (although probably not in as high amounts as we've been told). And we need synergistic nutrients like magnesium (which approximately 75% of us aren't getting enough of), and vitamin D and other synergistic minerals just as much.

Whether we need milk is an open question.

But the question of whether milk causes us to lose weight is not an open question at all.

The answer is "no".


As always, let me know what you think!


Warmly

jonny