Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (16 page)

This does not mean that dairy causes osteoporosis. However, it does suggest that dairy products are not protecting us from osteoporosis as we have been indoctrinated to believe since childhood.
On the contrary, studies show fruits and vegetables are protective against osteoporosis.
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Osteoporosis has a complex etiology that involves other factors such as dietary acid-alkaline balance, trace minerals, phytochemicals in plants, exercise, exposure to sunlight, and more. Dr. Campbell, head of nutritional research for the China Project, reported, “Ironically, osteoporosis tends to occur in countries where calcium intake is highest and most of it comes from protein-rich dairy products. The Chinese data indicate that people need less calcium than we think and can get adequate amounts from vegetable source plant food.” He told the
New York Times
that there was basically no osteoporosis in China, yet the calcium intake ranged from 241 to 943 mg per day (average, 544). The comparable U.S. calcium intake is 841 to 1,435 mg per day (average, 1,143), mostly from dairy sources, and, of course, osteoporosis is a major public health problem here.

To understand the causes of osteoporosis, one must comprehend the concept of negative calcium balance. Let’s say you consume about 1,000 mg of calcium a day. About a third of the calcium ingested gets absorbed. So if you absorb about 300 mg, the remaining 700 mg remains in the digestive tract and passes out with your stool. If, in this same twenty-four-hour period, you excreted 350 mg of calcium in your urine, would you be in a negative or positive calcium balance?

A negative calcium balance means more calcium is excreted in the urine than is absorbed through digestion. A positive calcium balance means more calcium is absorbed than is excreted. A negative balance over time results in bone loss, as the additional
calcium must come from our primary calcium storehouse, our bones.

Epidemiologic studies have linked osteoporosis not to low calcium intake but to various nutritional factors that cause excessive calcium loss in the urine. The continual depletion of our calcium reserves over time, from excessive calcium excretion in the urine, is the primary cause of osteoporosis. Now, let us consider the factors that contribute to this excessive urinary calcium excretion.

Published data clearly links increased urinary excretion of calcium with animal-protein intake but not with vegetable-protein intake.
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Plant foods, though some may be high in protein, are not acid-forming. Animal-protein ingestion results in a heavy acid load in the blood. This sets off a series of reactions whereby calcium is released from the bones to help neutralize the acid. The sulfur-based amino acids in animal products contribute significantly to urinary acid production and the resulting calcium loss.
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The Nurses’ Health Study found that women who consumed 95 grams of protein a day had a 22 percent greater risk of forearm fracture than those who consumed less than 68 grams.
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The most comprehensive epidemiological survey involving hip fractures and food was done in 1992.
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The authors sought
out every peer-reviewed geographical report ever done on hip-fracture incidence. They located thirty-four published studies of women in sixteen countries. Their analysis showed that diets high in animal protein had the highest correlation with hip-fracture rates, with an 81 percent correlation between eating animal protein and fractures.

The extra calcium contained in dairy foods simply cannot counteract the powerful effect of all the factors listed in the table above. The average American diet is not only high in protein but high in salt, sugar, and caffeine and low in fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables can help buffer the acid load from all the animal protein and reduce calcium loss.
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So we need to consume a lot more calcium to make up for the powerful combination of factors that induce calcium loss in the urine.

Some researchers believe it is possible to compensate for our high protein intake just by consuming more calcium.
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This might
be the case if the only thing we did to excess was consume a little too much animal protein, but in the context of everything else we do wrong in the American diet and lifestyle, it just doesn’t fly.

Drinking more milk is simply not protective. Taking extra calcium supplements may help trim the calcium loss a little and slow the rate of bone loss, but not enough. We need to reduce the other causes, too. We even add vitamin A to milk, and many women take vitamin A supplements, which contributes to more calcium loss.
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All these factors help explain why calcium intake does not correlate well with reduced hip-fracture rates around the globe. The Eskimos are a perfect example. They consume a huge amount of calcium, over 2,000 mg a day, from all the soft fish bones they eat, yet they have the highest hip-fracture rate in the world because they consume so much animal protein from fish.
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Green vegetables, beans, tofu, sesame seeds, and even oranges contain lots of usable calcium, without the problems associated with dairy. Keep in mind that you retain the calcium better and just do not need as much when you don’t consume a diet heavy in animal products and sodium, sugar, and caffeine.

Many green vegetables have calcium-absorption rates of over 50 percent, compared with about 32 percent for milk.
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Additionally, since animal protein induces calcium excretion in the urine, the calcium retention from vegetables is higher. All green vegetables are high in calcium.

The American “chicken and pasta” diet style is significantly low in calcium, so adding dairy as a calcium source to this mineral-poor diet makes superficial sense—it is certainly better than no calcium in the diet. However, much more than just calcium is missing. The only reason cow’s milk is considered such an important source of calcium is that the American diet is centered on animal foods, refined grains, and sugar, all of which are devoid of calcium. Any healthy diet containing a reasonable amount of
unrefined plant foods will have sufficient calcium without milk. Fruits and vegetables strengthen bones. Researchers have found that those who eat the most fruits and vegetables have denser bones.
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These researchers concluded that not only are fruits and vegetables rich in potassium, magnesium, calcium, and other nutrients essential for bone health, but, because they are alkaline, not acid-producing, they do not induce urinary calcium loss. Green vegetables in particular have a powerful effect on reducing hip fractures, for they are rich not only in calcium but in other nutrients, such as vitamin K, which is crucial for bone health.
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Numerous studies have shown that most Americans are severely vitamin D–deficient, a condition that causes osteoporosis as well as increased heart disease, cancer, and autoimmune disease.

Vitamin D helps maintain healthy levels of calcium in the blood, ensuring that calcium is always available to the body’s tissues. It increases calcium absorption in the small intestine, decreases calcium excretion in the urine, and facilitates the release of calcium from bones. A deficiency of vitamin D can cause increased demineralization of bone, leading to weak and soft bones. Strong evidence indicates that three out of four Americans would benefit from vitamin D supplementation with respect to fracture and fall prevention, and possibly other public health targets, such as cardiovascular health, diabetes, and cancer.
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The optimal range for vitamin D seems to be between 35 and 50 ng/mL.
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Almost 80 percent of Americans are below this level. Approximately 50 percent of Americans have a vitamin D level below 20 ng/mL, which is dangerously low. For the past fifteen years, I have been telling people to track their blood levels of vitamin D and to take vitamin D supplements. These recommendations have recently been corroborated by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Medical research studies that demonstrate the effectiveness
of vitamin D supplements on reducing the risk of bone fractures and cancers depend on doses significantly higher than the standard recommended daily dose of 400 IU.
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Most people need to take more than 1,000 IU of supplemental vitamin D to achieve adequate blood levels and to get substantial protection against osteoporosis, as well as life-threatening diseases such as cancer and heart disease. Some may need to take even higher doses initially to reestablish optimal blood levels.

Vitamin D is found naturally in very few foods; the primary sources are the sun, fortified dairy products, mushrooms, and supplements. I do not recommend consumption of dairy products, and sun exposure places you at unnecessary risk of skin cancer and wrinkling and aging of your skin. Regardless of the increased risk of skin damage, adequate sunshine is simply not available to our population of indoor workers living in northern latitudes. Taking a daily supplement is your best choice for establishing and maintaining optimal levels of vitamin D.

Dairy is best kept to a minimum. There are many good reasons not to consume dairy. For example, there is a strong association between dairy lactose and ischemic heart disease.
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There is also a clear association between high-growth-promoting foods such as dairy products and cancer. There is a clear association between milk consumption and bladder, prostate, colorectal, and testicular cancers.
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Dairy fat is also loaded with various toxins and is the primary source of our nation’s high exposure to dioxin.
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Dioxin is a highly toxic chemical compound that even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admits is a prominent cause of many types of cancer in those consuming dairy fat, such as butter and cheese.
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Cheese is also a powerful inducer of acid load, which increases calcium loss further.
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Considering that cheese and butter are the foods with the highest saturated-fat content and the major source of our dioxin exposure, cheese is a particularly foolish choice for obtaining calcium.

Cow’s milk is “designed” to be the perfect food for the rapidly growing calf, but as mentioned above, foods that promote rapid growth promote cancer. There is ample evidence implicating dairy consumption as a causative factor in both prostate and ovarian cancer.
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In April 2000 the Physicians’ Health Study reported that having 2.5 servings of dairy each day boosted prostate cancer risk by more than 30 percent.
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Another controlled study conducted in Greece has shown a strong association between dairy products and prostate cancer.
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By analyzing the data, the authors calculated that if the population of Greece were to increase its consumption of tomatoes and decrease its consumption of dairy products, prostate cancer incidence could be reduced by 41 percent, and an even greater reduction would be possible in America, where the dietary risk is even higher. Other studies have found that prostate cancer risk was elevated with increased consumption of low-fat milk, suggesting that the potential threat to prostate health may be correlated more to dairy protein than dairy fat.
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