Is brain damage associated with milk consumption due to the banned pesticides heptachlor or the milk sugar galactose?
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative brain disease that affects millions of people. What causes it? Well, if you view of the lifestyle factors associated with Parkinson’s disease, milk consumption is the strongest dietary factor associated with an increased risk of Parkinson’s disease. In fact, dairy products are the only food group connected with a high risk of developing Parkinson’s. There are five large prospective studies confirmed link This includes two Harvard groups, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, teamed up for decades in “the largest analysis of breast cancer and PD (Parkinson’s disease),” analyzing more than 1,000 newly diagnosed cases. All of the studies found a link between milk and Parkinson’s, most of which found a significant link – about a 50% increased risk in those who drank more milk compared to those who drank less. p-value is less than 0.00001, meaning there is less than a 1 in 100,000 chance that you will find this extreme by chance. You can see this in the chart below and at 1:13 in my video, Milk may play a role in the development of Parkinson’s disease.
OK, but why is there a link at all? “Despite clear links between milk consumption and Parkinson’s disease, there is no rational explanation” concluded a review. But after a year, we took Hint: “Mean milk consumption and basal neuronal density at death.” What does that mean? It’s Parkinson’s caused primarily by the loss of a certain type of nerve cell in an important part of the brain, with symptoms first appearing after most of these neurons have died. So, a study looked at how much milk people they drank when they were in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, and then examined their brains in the cadaver and counted how many of those vital neurons they had left. In each quadrant, the density of neurons was “highest in those who consumed no milk and lowest in those who consumed the most milk.” Even after controlling for Parkinson’s disease, those who drank two cups (473 ml) of milk a day had up to 40% fewer nerve cells in most quadrants of this important brain region. What is in milk that can destroy brain cells? Among the people who drank the most milk, “heptachlor epoxide” pesticide residues were found in 9 out of 10 brains. So perhaps finding more pesticide residues in the brains of those who drank more milk may explain how milk may be linked to Parkinson’s disease risk.
Now, that’s not the only possible explanation. In one of my videos I talked about how meat contains the neurotoxic protein alpha-synuclein. Well, dairy products can includes tracking amount too, but we have no confirmation of this. Could milk sugar be “galactose the missing link?” Galactose is what the lactose in milk breaks down into after it enters the body. It is also what is used for aging – experimentally aging in the brain. When you drink it, galactose is taken up by your brain within hours, and for doses above 100 mg/kg, it appears that galactose can cause pathological changes in brain cells, such as those seen in Parkinson’s disease. This amount can be “made and exceeded” by just drinking two glasses (473 ml) of milk (the main source of galactose) each day. And of all the brain cells, those dopaminergic neurons—the ones you need to preserve to prevent Parkinson’s disease—may be the most vulnerable to galactose damage because they’re the most vulnerable to oxidative stress.
Galactose can also explain findings linking drinking milk with higher mortality rates. You might think, “Well, saturated fat just shortens people’s lives,” but higher mortality is associated with higher milk consumption. was observed regardless of milk fat. Buttermilk may be fat-free, but it does not contain lactose.
Can’t you just drink lactose-free milk like Lactaid? It contains the enzyme lactase, which produces lactose-free milk. But it only breaks down the lactose into galactose in the carton, not in your gut, so you’re still eating the same amount of galactose. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is a higher consumption of milk in middle age connected to a greater rate of cognitive decline. Note that researchers use galactose to induce brain aging in the lab. D-galactose, a metabolic derivative of lactose, has been used extensively in animal models “to mimic cognitive aging” through oxidative stress. Compared to those who say they “almost never” drink milk, those who drink more than one glass (237 ml) a day are more likely to have a decline in global cognitive function.
Dr.’s comment
Here is the video of the meat I mentioned: Meat may play a role in the development of Parkinson’s disease.
You may remember that I have studied this before Could lactose explain the link between milk and Parkinson’s disease?. Uric acid can also be a competitor – see Parkinson’s disease and the uric acid sweet spot.
For more information on Parkinson’s disease, check out the related articles below.
