Is Whole Milk better for you that Skim Milk?

[dualstow]

The best way to deal with this risk is to have a balanced and moderate intake of the three types of fats: the inflammatory (Omega-6/Saturated), the anti-inflammatory (Omega-3) and the neutral (Omega-9).  But, to do this properly, you have to eat low saturated fat foodstuffs, or the balance will get out of whack.  In practical terms, that means only eating lean trimmed meats such as ground beef <10%, top sirloin or chicken breast, not saturated fat concentrates such as ghee, butter, ice cream, coconut fat, etc.. that Paleos and Atkins overindulge in. 

I'd rather die.

[Gumby]

I'm pretty sure the jury is still out on saturated fats. From Wikipedia...

Since the 1950s, it has been commonly believed, but never scientifically proven, that consumption of foods containing high amounts of saturated fatty acids (including meat fats, milk fat, butter, lard, coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil) is potentially less healthy than consuming fats with a lower proportion of saturated fatty acids...Current dietary advice recommends limiting saturated fats, though the scientific basis and usefulness of these recommendations has been questioned.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_ ... h_diseases

See also:
Know Your Fats
The Importance of Saturated Fats for Biological Functions

There seems to be some conflicting theories and conclusions out there. I suppose it all just ends up being what one wants to believe.

[MediumTex]

I started drinking unsweetened almond milk a few months ago instead of cow milk over my cereal, and now when I have to use cow milk because I am out of almond milk the sweetness of the cow milk is almost overpowering.

***

On the subject of living on breast milk alone, I think that would be a great thing to experiment with, assuming that the proper delivery device was used.

[BearBones]

There seems to be some conflicting theories and conclusions out there. I suppose it all just ends up being what one wants to believe.

True. You can read and believe anything you want. But some is from web sites with inherent conflicts of interest (see "donate" buttons) written by authors with questionable credentials (do a medline search on the authors' names). Others is from peer reviewed scientific literature. It has been a while since I looked into this, but I think that what MachineGhost has said above may be very well supported.

[Gumby]

There seems to be some conflicting theories and conclusions out there. I suppose it all just ends up being what one wants to believe.

True. You can read and believe anything you want. But some is from web sites with inherent conflicts of interest (see "donate" buttons) written by authors with questionable credentials (do a medline search on the authors' names). Others is from peer reviewed scientific literature. It has been a while since I looked into this, but I think that what MachineGhost has said above may be very well supported.

I think it's easy to generalize and dismiss conflicting research. But, the fact remains that the link between saturated fats and heart disease has never been proven — and may in fact be flawed.

Anyone who thinks that saturated fats cause heart disease needs to read this article from Men's Health...

Men's Health: What If Bad Fat is Actually Good For You?

The article summarizes all of the flaws in the well accepted saturated-fats-are-bad-for-you argument.

What If Bad Fat is Actually Good For You?

For decades, Americans have been told that saturated fat clogs arteries and causes heart disease. But there's just one problem: No one's ever proved it

Suppose you were forced to live on a diet of red meat and whole milk. A diet that, all told, was at least 60 percent fat -- about half of it saturated. If your first thoughts are of statins and stents, you may want to consider the curious case of the Masai, a nomadic tribe in Kenya and Tanzania.

In the 1960s, a Vanderbilt University scientist named George Mann, M.D., found that Masai men consumed this very diet (supplemented with blood from the cattle they herded). Yet these nomads, who were also very lean, had some of the lowest levels of cholesterol ever measured and were virtually free of heart disease.

Scientists, confused by the finding, argued that the tribe must have certain genetic protections against developing high cholesterol. But when British researchers monitored a group of Masai men who moved to Nairobi and began consuming a more modern diet, they discovered that the men's cholesterol subsequently skyrocketed.

Similar observations were made of the Samburu -- another Kenyan tribe -- as well as the Fulani of Nigeria. While the findings from these cultures seem to contradict the fact that eating saturated fat leads to heart disease, it may surprise you to know that this "fact" isn't a fact at all. It is, more accurately, a hypothesis from the 1950s that's never been proved.

...

We've spent billions of our tax dollars trying to prove the diet-heart hypothesis. Yet study after study has failed to provide definitive evidence that saturated-fat intake leads to heart disease.

...

"Academic scientists believe saturated fat is bad for you," says Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., a distinguished professor of nutritional studies at Penn State University, citing as evidence the "many studies" she believes show it to be true. But not everyone accepts those studies, and their proponents find it hard to be heard. Kris-Etherton acknowledges that "there's a good deal of reluctance toward accepting evidence suggesting the contrary."

Take, for example, a 2004 Harvard University study of older women with heart disease. Researchers found that the more saturated fat these women consumed, the less likely it was their condition would worsen. Lead study author Dariush Mozaffarian, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Harvard's school of public health, recalls that before the paper was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, he encountered formidable politics from other journals.

"In the nutrition field, it's very difficult to get something published that goes against established dogma," says Mozaffarian. "The dogma says that saturated fat is harmful, but that is not based, to me, on unequivocal evidence." Mozaffarian says he believes it's critical that scientists remain open minded. "Our finding was surprising to us. And when there's a discovery that goes against what's established, it shouldn't be suppressed but rather disseminated and explored as much as possible."

...

Perhaps the apparent bias against saturated fat is most evident in studies on low-carbohydrate diets. Many versions of this approach are controversial because they place no limitations on saturated-fat intake. As a result, supporters of the diet-heart hypothesis have argued that low-carb diets will increase the risk of heart disease. But published research doesn't show this to be the case. When people on low-carb diets have been compared head-to-head with those on low-fat diets, the low-carb dieters typically scored significantly better on markers of heart disease, including small, dense LDL cholesterol, HDL/LDL ratio, and triglycerides, which are a measure of the amount of fat circulating in your blood.

...

It could be that it's not bad foods that cause heart disease, it's bad habits. After all, in Volek's study, participants who followed the low-fat diet -- which was high in carbs -- also decreased their triglycerides. "The key factor is that they weren't overeating," says Volek. "This allowed the carbohydrates to be used for energy rather than converted to fat." Perhaps this is the most important point of all. If you consistently consume more calories than you burn, and you gain weight, your risk of heart disease will increase -- whether you favor eating saturated fats, carbs, or both.

But if you're living a healthy lifestyle -- you aren't overweight, you don't smoke, you exercise regularly -- then the composition of your diet may matter much less. And, based on the research of Volek and Dr. Krauss, a weight-loss or maintenance diet in which some carbohydrates are replaced with fat -- even if it's saturated -- will reduce markers of heart-disease risk more than if you followed a low-fat, high-carb diet.

"The message isn't that you should gorge on butter, bacon, and cheese," says Volek. "It's that there's no scientific reason that natural foods containing saturated fat can't, or shouldn't, be part of a healthy diet."

Source: Men's Health: What If Bad Fat is Actually Good For You?

[Lone Wolf]

Caseine also causes cancer.

Do you have a source for casein causing cancer?  I'd heard that this was one of the findings of the China Study, but I don't that work especially seriously.

I hit the dairy pretty hard so I'm what you'd call an interested party. 

This is what I found on PubMed:

A role for the amount and type of dietary protein in the etiology of cancer has not been studied extensively. Nevertheless, there is no compelling evidence from epidemiological studies to indicate that protein, at levels usually consumed, is a risk factor for cancer. On the other hand, animal studies suggest that certain peptides and amino acids derived from dietary proteins may influence carcinogenesis. The predominant protein in milk, casein, its peptides, but not liberated amino acids, have antimutagenic properties. Animal models, usually for colon and mammary tumorigenesis, nearly always show that whey protein is superior to other dietary proteins for suppression of tumour development.

[FarmerD]

Caseine also causes cancer.

Do you have a source for casein causing cancer?  I'd heard that this was one of the findings of the China Study, but I don't that work especially seriously.

I hit the dairy pretty hard so I'm what you'd call an interested party. 

This is what I found on PubMed:

A role for the amount and type of dietary protein in the etiology of cancer has not been studied extensively. Nevertheless, there is no compelling evidence from epidemiological studies to indicate that protein, at levels usually consumed, is a risk factor for cancer. On the other hand, animal studies suggest that certain peptides and amino acids derived from dietary proteins may influence carcinogenesis. The predominant protein in milk, casein, its peptides, but not liberated amino acids, have antimutagenic properties. Animal models, usually for colon and mammary tumorigenesis, nearly always show that whey protein is superior to other dietary proteins for suppression of tumour development.

If you want to read a interesting view, Anthony Colpo is always a good read:

“According to Campbell, his protein suspicions were confirmed when Indian researchers found that feeding casein (a type of milk protein) to rats increased their susceptibility to aflatoxin-induced liver cancer. Campbell and his colleagues began replicating these experiments and repeatedly found that casein did indeed trigger cancer in susceptible rodents. According to Campbell, “The safe proteins were from plants, including wheat and soy.”?
Extrapolating from the deleterious effects demonstrated by casein in rodents, Campbell goes on to warn that all animal proteins are a deadly threat to humans.
Campbell’s position constitutes little more than a totally unscientific leap of faith. Casein is one of the major protein-containing fractions of milk; the other is whey. Campbell does not mention that while casein is often observed to promote cancer in rats, whey protein does the exact opposite. Numerous experiments have shown that rats lucky enough to be fed whey experience greatly reduced tumor incidence when compared to rats fed casein, beef, soy or standard rat chow[Badger TM][Hakkak R][Hakkak R][McIntosh GH][Papenburg R][Bounous G].
Preliminary research suggests a similar effect may even occur in humans.”?

The China Study: More Vegan Nonsense!
http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=129


Colpo also rips on Forks Over Knives here:

Forks Over Knives: The Latest Vegan Nonsense Dissected, Debunked and Destroyed
http://anthonycolpo.com/?p=2258

[Lone Wolf]

If you want to read a interesting view, Anthony Colpo is always a good read:

Thanks a lot, FarmerD.  The Colpo material was impressively well-researched.  That made for a good read.