Goat's Milk for Chlorestorol

[Kroeran]

reading about niacin and people struggling with cholestoral reminded me of a news item I read many years ago about the benefits of goat milk.

did some poking around and found this

"In summary, the results reported in this study show

that supplying goat’s milk in the diet rather than cow’s
milk leads to an increase in the biliary secretion of
cholesterol and a decrease in plasma cholesterol concentration.
The outputs of phospholipids and bile acids, and
the lithogenic index remained within normal values.
Moreover, consumption of this type of milk lowers
plasma concentration of triglycerides and therefore has
a positive effect similar to that of virgin olive oil (standard
diet) on the lipid metabolism."

http://jds.fass.org/cgi/reprint/88/3/1024.pdf

of course, it may be biased, being published by the Irish Goat Herder's Guild (not!)

I seem to recall reading an earlier article that blames homogenization for raising cholestoral levels - here is something I just dug up

Homogenization

anyway, the idea is that unhomogenized cow milk, or goat milk, which never requires homogenization, does not contain the bad chemicals that trigger inflammation and other nasty things associated with heart disease.

Personally, I prefer fresh goat milk to cow milk, reminds me of a milkshake, especally 3%. Don't buy goat milk close to its best before date...too gamey

​

 

[Kroeran]

since no-one else is interested in the issue of homogenization...I will just have a conversation with myself!

one idea I thought of, since it is hard to find unhomogenized milk (and we are not talking about pasturization here), and some can't get their heads around goat milk, is to:

1) start with regular zero-fat skim milk
2) add table cream (which I don't think is homogenized?) to taste, to the container, shake before use

this way you are reconstituting unhomogenized milk from commonly available ingrediants.

of course, anyone I mention this to looks at me like I have two heads, but I get that a lot anyway

 

[happy2bretired]

The organic milk that I buy (cow's milk) is not homogenized. It is available. Many times when I first open the bottle, before shaking it, there is a nice glob of fat around the top. Best milk that I've tasted in a long time.

 

[Orchidflower]

Only thing I know about goat's milk is I was fed goat's milk in my baby bottle when I was little according to my mother. Must be okay as I've always been really healthy.

 

[ERD50]

Never heard that homogenized cows milk was worse for you than non-homogenized. The article you linked didn't sound too scientific, they didn't mention control groups or blind studies or anything. Plus, they added Vit B&C to their diets.

from wiki:

Kurt A. Oster, M.D., who worked in the 1960s through the 1980s, suggested a link between homogenized milk and arterosclerosis, due to damage to plasmalogen as a result of the release of bovine xanthine oxidase (BXO) from the milk fat globular membrane (MFGM) during homogenization. However, Oster's hypothesis has been widely criticized and has not been generally accepted by the scientific community. No link has been found between arterosclerosis and milk consumption.[26]

Goat milk may be better for us than cows milk, I don't know. The homogenization thing just doesn't sound like the explanation to me.

-ERD50

 

[Kroeran]

Interesting comments. Would be worthwhile to dig into this a bit deeper.

there is this

"
Homogenised Milk

Unpasteurised milk: Homogenisation & heart disease; also Milk: Creaming & homogenisation
In recent years, there has been increased attention placed on potential health concerns relating to the homogenisation of milk and other dairy products. Studies conducted by Dr Kurt A Oster and his colleague D.J. Ross from the early 1960s to the mid 1980s suggested that homogenised milk could be a major factor in arterial plaque formation, causing heart disease.
Oster and Ross hypothesised that the homogenisation of milk increased the dietary availability of xanthine oxidase, which could lead to the formation of arterial, or atheromatous, plaque. However a team lead by A.J. Clifford in the early 1980s asserted that Oster and Ross had not sufficiently established their arguments.
While the xanthine oxidase/plasmalogen hypothesis has been disproved, the debate is hardly over. Lipids expert Mary Enig has remarked that while Oster's work has been discounted, it does not prove that the homogenisation process is benign, as it vastly increases the surface area of fat globules, and causes new globule mebranes to be formed which have a different composition to raw milk fat globules. Examination of the xanthine oxidase issue has continued, with recent research by R.J. Hajjar and J.A. Leopold, "Xanthine oxidase inhibition and heart failure: novel therapeutic strategy for ventricular dysfunction", published in Circulation Research (2006) (journal of the American Heart Association)."


Cardio 360: Heart Healthy Diet


as a general rule, I believe it is prudent to move away from foods that have been linked to problems if there is an acceptable and easy substitute


as a general principle, the more distant a food is from its natural form, the more likely the human body will not be equipped to cope with it


the human body is optimized to exploit the foods available 50,000 years ago, when evolution was more or less arrested



basically all science more and more points to this "caveman diet" fo optimal health....fish, lean meat, vegetables, fruit...pretty much everything that came into use through farming is out of scope to our genetic code

 

[ERD50]

as a general rule, I believe it is prudent to move away from foods that have been linked to problems if there is an acceptable and easy substitute

Well I would certainly agree with that!

... as a general principle, the more distant a food is from its natural form, the more likely the human body will not be equipped to cope with it

Probably a reasonable guideline, but I would not take it strictly or literally. Water can be made safer by desalinization, boiling, exposure to UV light, etc. Acorns are made less toxic by soaking in water or other processing to leach out the tannins.

the human body is optimized to exploit the foods available 50,000 years ago, when evolution was more or less arrested

I don't think evolution is ever arrested? I agree that there may be some merit in understanding what foods we really have evolved to eat, but that in turn does not mean that some foods or processes unknown 50,000 years ago would be harmful. Or that all the things they ate 50,000 years ago would be good for them.



bold mine...

there is this.....

Oster and Ross hypothesised that the homogenisation of milk increased the dietary availability of xanthine oxidase, which could lead to the formation of arterial, or atheromatous, plaque.


Cardio 360: Heart Healthy Diet

The problem with that is it is merely a hypothesis. I didn't see anything that provided any evidence that homogenized milk would actually cause problems in humans. They make a very large leap from one study involving XOs (which never contained the word 'milk' or 'homogenization'), to some effect of homogenization and XOs.

As a crude and silly analogy, I could say " We know that boiling water can cause third degree burns, and we know that iced tea is often made with boiling water, so I therefore hypothesize that iced tea could present a risk of third degree burns". You see where the logic falls apart. If studies showed a correlation between health, H-milk and non-H-milk, then we would have something. Without that, I think there are much bigger fish to fry (or poach? or eat raw?) in the health debate.


-ERD50

 

[Kroeran]

Probably a reasonable guideline, but I would not take it strictly or literally. Water can be made safer by desalinization, boiling, exposure to UV light, etc. Acorns are made less toxic by soaking in water or other processing to leach out the tannins.

good discussion!

the best is spring water from an unsullied natural source, everything else is unnatural...I have heard that distilled water is so unnaturally pure that the lack of minerals actually leeches minerals from your bones. You can boil and disinfect things to kingdom come, then you get underdeveloped immune systems which cause asthma and allergies.

Maybe we should just not eat acorns if they are toxic! My general point is that the human platform evolved from lower life forms in conjunction with the environment and naturally available foods - our DNA does not recognise all the new stuff, which is the source of most premature illness and aging.

I suspect medical training and the science pre-requisites leads to an overestimation of how much we have things figured out and an underestimation of the unintended consequences, then roll into that the force of the invisible fist, which is the power of industry to get behind a profitable product or process, and cover up the side effects or collatoral damage.

I don't think evolution is ever arrested? I agree that there may be some merit in understanding what foods we really have evolved to eat, but that in turn does not mean that some foods or processes unknown 50,000 years ago would be harmful. Or that all the things they ate 50,000 years ago would be good for them.

I would propose that several tens of thousands of years ago, when we figured out how to not get eaten by tigers and figured out how to establish societal organization which limited permanent tribal war and survival of the fittest, we reached a tipping point, whereby virtually all genetic variants could reach the age of reproduction and did so, and in this way, the human of today is not much different than the human of 50,000 years ago.

it is hard, if not impossible, to understand all the science and implications of post-caveman foods...the easy solution is to hold all modern foods guilty until proven innocent...at the very least, when faced with a painless choice between the two - the spirit of which is captured in the mediterranean diet - basically natural foods that have had some degree of processing to be held with some contempt (ie. canned vegetables), but most certainly, frankenfoods invented in laboritories and made out of chemicals, not to be eaten if at all possible.

the flip side of this is that I would accept a GMO variant of an important crop if it was to reduce the obvious and known pesticide residuals associated with pre-GMO technology. Its a question of playing the odds and risk management. For example, there exist GMO crops that would be of great benefit to African populations, but there use is blocked by over-precaution on the part of Europeans.

The problem with that is it is merely a hypothesis. I didn't see anything that provided any evidence that homogenized milk would actually cause problems in humans. They make a very large leap from one study involving XOs (which never contained the word 'milk' or 'homogenization'), to some effect of homogenization and XOs.

yes, this is the same logic that has all the scientist's head's exploding at the thought that MS could be the result of blocked arteries and criticising the lack of animal studies, a debate that is raging in Canada this month due to the documentary on the liberation method presented in our version of 60 Minutes (W5) - in the meantime the Italian research doctor just scanned his wifes arteries, saw blockage, and stented them..and the MS went away in a week - he reported this, and other sucesses, and has been railed against for not following scientific method.

or the guy who figured out that ulcers were caused by bacteria - who faced ridicule for decades...and so on.

precaution says, if there is a strange hypothesis, that has some logic to it, that has no cost or risk to incorporate, do it, especially if the hypothesis is based on the adulteration of a natural product.

As a crude and silly analogy, I could say " We know that boiling water can cause third degree burns, and we know that iced tea is often made with boiling water, so I therefore hypothesize that iced tea could present a risk of third degree burns". You see where the logic falls apart. If studies showed a correlation between health, H-milk and non-H-milk, then we would have something. Without that, I think there are much bigger fish to fry (or poach? or eat raw?) in the health debate.

no, the base hypothesis is that virtually all food/health research continues to reinforce that unnatural foods and the excess consumption thereof, combined with unnatural sedentaryness, is the cause of most ill health, therefore, any adulteration is to be held in suspicion, and deemed guilty until proven innocent, unless there is a darn good demonstrated reason for eating it in that form.

 

[TromboneAl]

I would propose that several tens of thousands of years ago, when we figured out how to not get eaten by tigers and figured out how to establish societal organization which limited permanent tribal war and survival of the fittest, we reached a tipping point, whereby virtually all genetic variants could reach the age of reproduction and did so, and in this way, the human of today is not much different than the human of 50,000 years ago.

I think you're not recognizing the subtleties of evolution. You don't have to be eaten by a tiger to make it less likely that your genes are passed on. That ugly, flatulent homeless guy that you sat next to on the bus last week will be less likely to pass his genes on than will Richard Gere.

In the 90s, a genetic variation that thwarts AIDS infection was discovered. People with that variation will be slightly more likely to reproduce.

Evolution is alive and well.

 

[Kroeran]

I think you're not recognizing the subtleties of evolution. You don't have to be eaten by a tiger to make it less likely that your genes are passed on. That ugly, flatulent homeless guy that you sat next to on the bus last week will be less likely to pass his genes on than will Richard Gere.

In the 90s, a genetic variation that thwarts AIDS infection was discovered. People with that variation will be slightly more likely to reproduce.

Evolution is alive and well.

sure, good point

I would offer the following counter arguments:

- where I am virtually all homeless are mentally ill who do not have the basic human skills intact to access the social system, which actually is correlated to higher IQ and education...these guys made kids in their twenties before they went nutty and developed substance abuse.

- the aids thing is very subtle, they are copulating and reproducing with or without the variation, leaving orphans who survive and repeat the cycle, and applies to that small part of the planet in exceptional circumstances where one can actually die from starvation.

- I think where genetic variation shows up is in movement between socio-economic class. Very few individuals are in such rough shape genetically that they can't even manage to get on welfare and impregnate someone...many welfare systems actually reward this outcome!

- the genetic variation is overlaid with a firmware code, which is the culture that each socio-economic group or underclass (for example) is programmed with, which moves the particular group up or down for their cycle...for example, a person born into or who chooses lets say the "black church" firmware code, is likely to move up in their generation, and the person that is born into or chooses the "rapper" firmware, is likely to remain trapped or move down in socio-economic class, based not on their genetic hardware, but rather due to their sticky firmware, which is hard to change.

- equally works the other way, with a person born into privalege or given a superior genetic platform of any race, who comes under the influence of "rapper" firmware, are who out of a determined nihilism self destructs

so in this way, I believe the evolution of culture and the cultural "package" choices that individuals make is FAR more important than the slight variation in genetics over time, if any.

I am not American, so please forgive me if I am violating some polticial correctness rules...my Amercan sister in law freaks when talk about this sort of thing

 

[Kroeran]

Dr. Oz on Sardinian Diet with further comments on Goats Milk

The Dietary Staples of Sardinia - Oprah.com

 

[ERD50]

Dr. Oz on Sardinian Diet with further comments on Goats Milk

The Dietary Staples of Sardinia - Oprah.com

Thanks for bringing this thread back to life, I meant to reply to your earlier comments but got distracted by life/holidays, etc.

OK, so once again a few vague comments about "small fat globules" enzymes and how "some people" may experience stomach upset. I don't experience stomach upset with h-milk, so should I worry?

Now, if someone published the results of a double-blind study, where one group drank only h-milk, and the other non-h milk, and there was a statistically significant difference in the health of each group.... THAT would get my attention. This other stuff is just noise, IMO.

good discussion!

....

Maybe we should just not eat acorns if they are toxic!

Tell that to the Native Americans who relied on them as part of their diet to get them through (as in not starve to death) a tough winter.

the flip side of this is that I would accept a GMO variant of an important crop if it was to reduce the obvious and known pesticide residuals associated with pre-GMO technology. Its a question of playing the odds and risk management. For example, there exist GMO crops that would be of great benefit to African populations, but there use is blocked by over-precaution on the part of Europeans.

Glad to see we agree on that one! There are lots of "hard core" anti-GMO people out there.

or the guy who figured out that ulcers were caused by bacteria - who faced ridicule for decades...and so on.

Yes, that is a fascinating story. But, he presented evidence. Evidence that could be replicated by other parties. That is the scientific method, and it generally wins out in the end.

no, the base hypothesis is that virtually all food/health research continues to reinforce that unnatural foods and the excess consumption thereof, combined with unnatural sedentaryness, is the cause of most ill health,

OK, let's try that again, this time with my emphasis added....

no, the base hypothesis is that virtually all food/health research continues to reinforce that unnatural foods ....

and the excess consumption thereof, ....

combined with unnatural sedentaryness,

is the cause of most ill health,

Again, a scientific study with one variable changed would shed some light on this. Excess consumption and lack of exercise probably deserve top billing on that marquee.

therefore, any adulteration is to be held in suspicion, and deemed guilty until proven innocent, unless there is a darn good demonstrated reason for eating it in that form.

And yet, despite the excess consumption and lack of exercise, we get this....

Death Is On the Decline, the CDC Finds - ABC News

U.S. life expectancy has reached an all-time high as death rates continue to decline, says a new data brief from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

...

Though this data reflects a decades-old trend, Ellen Meara, professor of health care policy at Harvard University, said that "looking at the continuation of this trend…I find it impressive is that it is continuing to move along at the same pace -- you would think at one point it has to get harder."

-ERD50