Milk and Possible Link to Diabetes

Babies and Cow’s Milk

In 1992, a study was published by Canadian and Finnish researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers followed 142 children newly diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and found that all of them had antibodies in their blood that were primed to attack cow’s milk protein.

A portion of cow’s milk protein is biochemically an exact match for a portion of human insulin-producing cells.

These children’s immune systems ended up attacking their own bodies’ pancreatic cells. They were destroyed by ‘friendly fire.’

Their immune systems had recognized the bovine proteins as foreign and attacked not only the cow proteins but insulin-producing cells too. —Dr. Neal Barnard

For this reason, among others, the American Academy of Pediatrics no longer suggests dairy milk for infants. Also, when breast-feeding women eat dairy products, the milk proteins end up in their breast milk.

Therefore, breast-feeding mothers may do well to avoid dairy milk.”-Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

A Bovine Albumin Peptide as a Possible Trigger of Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus— New England Journal of Medicine. 1992

Managing type 2 diabetes with diet

People already diagnosed with diabetes can use a healthy plant-based diet to keep insulin dosages to a minimum and reduce the risk of complications.

A healthful plant-based lifestyle that is low in fat can minimize the amount of insulin required by a person with T1DM.

A decrease in dietary fat may be linked to lower insulin needs. This happens because the fat from food can diminish insulin action and intensify the liver’s release of glucose into the blood.

As a result, people who have T1DM require less insulin to cover a lower-fat meal than a higher-fat meal with the same amount of carbohydrates.

The improved insulin sensitivity and decreased insulin need may persist for hours after eating a relatively lower-fat meal—Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Please watch the two short videos below from NutritionFacts.org. They are only 5 and 6 minutes long and well worth the time.

 

Free fact sheet, Type 1 Diabetes Basics, from Physicians Committee.

This 7-minute video explains why feeding kids cow’s milk has the potential to lead to type 1 diabetes. Worth watching.

This 2-hour video, The Shocking Truth About Carbs and Diabetes, is also very informative.

“Experts in the science of insulin resistance, Cyrus Khambatta, PhD and Robby Barbaro MPH are Type 1 diabetics who have successfully helped thousands prevent, navigate and reverse diabetes of all kinds through simple changes in diet and lifestyle — chronicled in their new book, ‘Mastering Diabetes’. Current medical dogma urges diabetics and prediabetics to adopt a very low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. But is this actually true? Today Cyrus & Robby put this paradigm to the test, making the case for a high carb, whole food, plant-based diet as optimal. “