Milk

One reason some people avoid milk, other than allergy and taste, is the amount of fat in milk. You therefore hear this reason mainly from people who watch the fats in their diet in general, and that is why you will hear it relatively often in the gym. This is also because people often weigh up whether milk or water should be added to, for example, a shake after training. Where others drink Brinta with milk, they replace the milk with water to eliminate the fats. Apart from taste, you have to ask yourself whether the amount of fat in milk should be a reason not to drink milk.

Fats in milk: Does milk make you fat?

Right ratio of fats and protein, relatively few carbohydrates

First of all, skimmed milk therefore contains no fat or only a minimal amount. Moreover, the amounts of fat, or calories from fat, in semi-skimmed milk are not much greater in relation to the amount of carbohydrates and protein than the share that most people under normal circumstances would, or should, want to get from fat. For building muscle mass, a good guideline is to get 50% of your calories from carbohydrates, 25% from protein and 25% from fat, although 50-30-20 (carbohydrates, protein and fat) is also often used. Fat provides more than twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrates and protein, namely 9 kcal per gram compared with 4 kcal per gram. That means an ideal meal should contain twice as much protein and four times as many carbohydrates as fat. For semi-skimmed milk, the ratio between protein and fat is exactly right. Per hundred grams it contains 1.5 grams of fat and 3 grams of protein. According to that guideline, the carbohydrates in milk are slightly "on the low side", with 4.6 grams per 100 grams where 6 grams would have been "ideal". Carbohydrates, however, are much easier to add to a diet than protein and good fats. In my personal diet for muscle mass, milk is therefore almost indispensable for getting the right amounts of protein and fats alongside carbohydrates.

Milk does not make your weight increase more than the calories would suggest"

It is possible that certain foods stimulate or inhibit metabolism, causing them, in the latter case, to make you gain weight faster than the number of calories would suggest. I found only one study that would show that drinking milk makes you fatter (14). In this American study, more than 16,000 children aged 9-14 were asked for three years to provide information about their diet. It showed that children who drank more milk gained more weight. However, the increase in weight was in line with the amount of extra calories the children consumed through milk.

Children who drank the most milk gained more weight, but the added calories appeared responsible.

C. Berkey, Harvard School of Public Health

Milk would therefore only make you fat if its intake causes you to consume more calories per day in total than you burn.

Losing weight with milk?

As mentioned, some foods can speed up metabolism. In the case of milk, it is suspected that the calcium it contains may actually help you lose weight. Several studies have been done on this (16-25), and opinions are divided. Some believe they have shown that you indeed gain less weight or lose weight through dairy products (16-23), while others have compared many studies and see this confirmed only in a small minority of cases (24), or conclude that further research is needed (25).

The researcher Zemel from the University of Tennessee has done several studies on the role of dairy products in body fat (15). He mainly looked at the influence of calcium, studying the effects in humans and mice with a specific abnormality that leads to obesity. Unlike the large American study, he also looked at differences at equal calorie intake, so it is clear that weight gain or loss is separate from the amount of calories. He concluded that calcium has an inhibitory effect on lipogenesis, the creation of body fat, a stimulating effect on lipolysis, the burning of fat, and thermogenesis. The latter is the heat generated by eating food, in other words the energy it costs to process the meal. The more energy it costs, the less weight you gain from the meal consumed.

When less food comes in, the body responds by processing food more efficiently. Thermogenesis then decreases, which is nice if you have washed up on a deserted island and have too little food, but undesirable when you are deliberately eating less to lose weight. Thermogenesis would not decrease when less is eaten if enough calcium is consumed. He also looked at the role of calcitriol in this process. Calcitriol is the hormonal, active form of vitamin D. When calcium levels in the blood are too low, calcitriol causes extra calcium to be pulled from the stomach and possibly from bone. This also creates more calcium in fat cells (adipocytes). Zemel states that more calcium in fat cells limits the creation of new fat cells from so-called preadipocytes, other cells (fibroblasts) that can change into fat cells (15-25). The calcium in dairy products has an even stronger effect than calcium as a supplement, probably because of the other components of milk that enhance the effect.

High-calcium diets attenuate adipocyte lipid accretion and weight gain during overconsumption of an energy-dense diet and increase lipolysis and preserve thermogenesis during caloric restriction, thereby markedly accelerating weight loss....

Dairy sources of calcium exert markedly greater effects in attenuating weight and fat gain and accelerating fat loss....

Dairy sources of calcium exert markedly greater effects in attenuating weight and fat gain and accelerating fat loss.

....which demonstrate that increasing dietary calcium results in significant reductions in adipose tissue mass in obese humans in the absence of caloric restriction and markedly accelerates the weight and body fat loss secondary to caloric restriction, whereas dairy products exert significantly greater effects. These data indicate an important role for dairy products in both the prevention and treatment of obesity

M.B. Zemel,  University of Tennessee

More research needed on milk

Can you therefore say that you lose weight because of milk? Not directly. First, because Zemel appears to be paid by the dairy industry and may not be entirely objective (26). Moreover, other researchers come to a different conclusion. Researchers from the University of British Columbia in Canada, for example, compared the results of nine studies on the influence of dairy products on body weight and body composition (23). Seven showed no significant difference, while two studies among older adults actually showed a significant increase in body weight. Even from these studies, however, it was difficult to draw a conclusion about the effect of dairy on weight because it is not known to what extent total calorie intake was increased by the dairy.

They therefore then looked at the effects of calcium supplementation. This would allow them to study the effects of calcium, as also described by Zemel, separately from the other components of milk that provide the extra calories. Of the seventeen studies they compared, there was only one in which weight decreased because of calcium. In all other studies, the changes in weight and body fat in the group taking calcium were the same as those of the control group. The researchers point out that the studies they compared were not specifically designed to examine the effect on body weight and body composition, and that such studies are needed to provide a definitive answer. Based on their current findings, however, they have to conclude that there is no indication that dairy causes you to lose weight.

In conclusion, the data available from randomized trials of dairy product or calcium supplementation provide little support for an effect in reducing body weight or fat mass. However, the studies reviewed were not specifically designed or powered to address this issue; such studies are required.

S.I. Barr, University of British Columbia

You therefore cannot say that milk makes you lose weight faster, nor has it been sufficiently shown that this is not the case.

Nutritional values in milk: Carbohydrates, lactose

Just as many types of food provide energy from protein, fats and carbohydrates, the same applies to milk. Carbohydrates are an important supplier of quickly available energy, but they can be stored only to a limited extent. They are formed from hydrogen, carbon and oxygen, and are named after carbon and the Greek word for water (hydros). In other words, they are a hydrate, a strong compound with water, of carbon.

Where plants store carbohydrates (sugars) in the form of starch and humans and animals store carbohydrates in the form of glycogen, milk does this in the form of lactose (C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁).

Lactose = Galactose + Glucose 

Carbohydrates can be built from various saccharides, sugars. There are carbohydrates that consist of one (type of) saccharide (monosaccharides), two saccharides (disaccharides), a few saccharides (oligosaccharides) and many saccharides (polysaccharides). An important form of carbohydrate is the monosaccharide glucose (natural form = grape sugar/dextrose), because this is the most common form that the body converts into glycogen and plants convert into starch. Other forms that can be absorbed directly into the blood are fructose ("fruit sugar") and galactose, both monosaccharides.

Lactose is a disaccharide, composed of the two types of (mono)saccharides: galactose and glucose (39). This distinction compared with other types of carbohydrates is important in the context of lactose allergies, which I will discuss further later in this article.

If you want to know what milk does for your muscle growth or body fat, you can look at, among other things, two issues: The total amount of carbohydrates and therefore calories it contains, and the way this type of carbohydrate, lactose, is absorbed by the body and the speed at which that happens.

Amount of calories in milk from carbohydrates (lactose)

As for the total amount of calories in milk from carbohydrates, you can partly refer back to the explanation under fats. Milk contains about 4.6 grams of carbohydrates per 100 grams (semi-skimmed 4.6, whole 4.5 and skimmed 4.9). This is relatively little in relation to the amount of protein and fats. In that sense, milk is not an ideal source of carbohydrates because they are not present in the assumed ideal ratio to protein and fats. As applies to all nutrients, here too you simply have to look at how the amount of milk you drink, and with it the nutrients you take in, fits into the rest of your diet.

Speed of absorption of carbohydrates in milk (lactose)

The speed at which carbohydrates are absorbed is important for knowing when to consume them. If you need energy just before training, you need "fast" carbohydrates that can already provide you with energy during the workout and not only when you are finished. If you eat a meal aimed at bridging the hours until your next meal, you are better off eating "slow carbohydrates".

The speed of carbohydrates is often expressed in a Glycemic Index (GI). This GI shows how quickly a type of carbohydrate raises blood sugar levels compared with glucose, which is set at 100% as the benchmark. Although these indexes are never completely accurate because of measurement and interpretation differences and properties of the food, such as how cooked the pasta is or how ripe the fruit is, they are a good indication of how quickly certain carbohydrates will provide you with energy and for how long. With a GI of 45, lactose is a slow type of carbohydrate comparable to spaghetti. It is therefore not useful to drink milk directly before training, because during your workout this will not yet lead to a rise in your blood sugar. You are better off doing this an hour before training.

Milk and the effect on IGF-1 levels

The explanation about lactose would of course be a nice bridge to an explanation of lactose intolerance and allergy, but I want to stay with the positive effects of milk on body composition for just a little longer. One of these is the effect of milk on IGF-1 levels. IGF-1, or Insulin-like Growth Factor, is a metabolite, or derivative, of HGH, Human Growth Hormone. Like HGH, it is a growth factor that does what the name says: It causes cells to grow, most cells, so not only muscle cells. Especially before and during puberty, it has a major influence on growth. Laron syndrome, a form of dwarfism, is caused, for example, by defective IGF receptors to which IGF-1 must bind. This prevents IGF-1 from doing its job, leading to dwarf stature. We see the opposite with abuse of IGF-1. As doping, IGF-1 and HGH are sometimes used in such large amounts that this not only leads to more muscle mass, but also causes the organs to grow. Needless to say, this is dangerous, and aesthetically it is not attractive either. It leads, for example, to the well-known "roid guts" among professional bodybuilders, bellies that, although free of subcutaneous fat and equipped with a six-pack, still protrude (see examples in the video).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS50wDyUTwI

These, however, are examples of extremely large amounts that are introduced directly. That is very different from using food that naturally raises your own levels of IGF-1. Milk does that, for example (29). Moreover, naturally high IGF-1 levels, besides the advantage of extra muscle growth, possibly through hyperplasia (cell division instead of cell growth as in hypertrophy), may also have the advantage of extra fat burning (27,28).

Milk vs. Cola?

Danish researchers saw that adding 58 grams of protein per day to the diet of 8-year-old boys in the form of milk led to increased IGF-1 levels, while the same increase in protein from meat did not have that effect (29,31-34).

Milk seems to contain some growth factors that stimulate IGF. We have seen increased concentrations of both IGF-I and IGF-binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3), the molar ratio of IGF-I:IGFBP-3 in pre-pubertal boys after a 1-week intervention with milk and not meat.

C. Hoppe, University of Copenhagen

Later the same researchers compared the effects of cola on IGF-1 with those of milk (30). Their starting point was: "A lot of soft drinks are consumed among Western youth, so what if you replaced this with milk?" After all, they had previously shown that milk can increase IGF-1 and wondered whether a lack of milk, because it has been replaced by soft drinks, was the cause of lower IGF-1 levels. Moreover, the earlier study had been done among 8-year-olds. Because it is known that the effect of IGF-1 is especially large among young people, they now wanted to look at the effect in adults.

They first had the test subjects drink 2.5 liters of milk per day for ten days and then 2.5 liters of cola per day for ten days, with ten days of "washout" in between so the effects of the first ten days would not influence the second ten-day period. Another group did the same in the reverse order. Replacing cola with milk did indeed appear to increase IGF-1 levels:

The present study demonstrates that high intake of cola over a 10 d period decreases total IGF-I compared with a high intake of milk, with no effect on glucose–insulin metabolism in adult men.

C. Hoppe, University of Copenhagen

The positive effect of milk on IGF-1 had previously been shown in four studies (31-34).

Besides the favorable effects of IGF-1, high levels can also lead to an increased risk of certain forms of cancer and diabetes, but more on that in part II.

Lactose intolerance vs. lactose allergy vs. galactosemia

Milk is not good for everyone. However many benefits it may have, it is of little use if your body cannot tolerate a sip of milk.

Lactose intolerance: As mentioned, lactose, the disaccharide, is a carbohydrate composed of the monosaccharides glucose and galactose. In the body, an enzyme called lactase breaks lactose down into glucose and galactose so it can be processed further (35). People with lactose intolerance do not have enough of this enzyme, so lactose cannot be broken down properly. Mammals, including humans, produce less and less of this enzyme as they age, which means lactose intolerance can also develop later in life (35,36). Even greater differences than those caused by age can be seen between different ethnic groups. People of African and Asian origin suffer from lactose intolerance much more often than Europeans (in this respect I apparently have more from my Dutch mother than from my Nigerian father). While this is around 5% in Europe, it can rise to more than 90% in Africa and Asia (37).

Lactose intolerance can mainly lead to intestinal complaints and nausea, abdominal pain, flatulence, diarrhea and cramps because it disrupts digestion (38). These complaints can be prevented by:

• Not consuming more lactose than your tolerance threshold. In most adults this is more than 3 grams per day (39), while some can consume up to 10 grams per day without symptoms, comparable to a small glass of milk.
• Increasing the amount of lactase enzyme so lactose can be broken down in larger amounts. You can do this by taking lactase enzymes before a meal with lactose, or by buying "lactose-free" products to which this enzyme has already been added. In the case of "lactose-free milk", this happens about 24 hours before the heat treatment of the milk (39). This breaks the lactose in the milk down into glucose and galactose, whereas normally this only happens in the body. Separately, these can be processed well by people with lactose intolerance. Galactose and glucose are each sweeter than lactose. Lactose-free milk therefore has a sweeter taste.

Lactose intolerance and supplements

To know whether you, as a lactose-intolerant person, will get symptoms from supplements, you must either check how many carbohydrates from lactose they contain, or avoid supplements with lactose altogether. Most protein supplements are made from milk, whey and casein. Depending on the degree to which they are filtered, they contain many or few carbohydrates, in this case lactose:

• (unfiltered) whey: About 14 grams per 100 grams
• whey concentrate (filtered): 7-8 grams per 100 grams)
• whey isolate (filtered even further): About 2 grams per 100 grams)

For someone who does not want or is not allowed to consume more than 3 grams of lactose, these differences are very important. If you assume 30-35 grams of protein, which is a fairly common amount for a shake, then someone could take 3 shakes with whey isolate without getting symptoms. The same shake, but now with concentrate or unfiltered whey, would immediately lead to symptoms.

With protein supplements you can assume that all carbohydrates come from lactose, so you can still calculate how much you may have. With other supplements this is always more difficult, because it is then hard to determine whether, and to what extent, the carbohydrates come from lactose. In most supplements that contain protein, you have to take lactose into account. There are exceptions when the protein has been obtained from soy or rice, for example, although soy, which is not milk but a juice, contains other carbohydrates that can sometimes cause the same reaction in lactose-intolerant people.

Elimination-challenge test: "How intolerant am I to lactose?"

You can see that it can be important to know how intolerant you are to lactose. If you can tolerate 10 grams, you can still use quite a lot of protein powder before it bothers you. But how do you find out whether, or how, intolerant you are to lactose?

To determine whether you are lactose intolerant, there are several tests such as the lactose intolerance test, the hydrogen breath test and the stool acidity test (40,41). These are all tests that can be performed in a hospital or by a general practitioner. However, there is also a test you can perform yourself, and with which you can also test the degree to which you are lactose intolerant. The so-called elimination-challenge test means that you first remove all lactose from your diet (elimination) to see whether complaints you had disappear. Then, after a period without symptoms, if they have indeed disappeared, you add lactose again (challenge) to see whether the symptoms return. If this happens, you know you are intolerant to lactose. If the symptoms did not disappear during elimination or do not return during the challenge phase, there was very likely another cause for your complaints.

You can also use this test to measure how tolerant or intolerant you are to lactose by repeating the test, but slowly increasing the daily amount of lactose per week during the challenge phase. Start, for example, at 2 grams per day and see at what amount the symptoms return.

You can of course play it safe and avoid all lactose, but then it is wise to look for other sources of calcium (42). Milk is an important source of calcium, and a lack of it can lead to other complaints (42).

"Do not be too intolerant of lactose tolerance"

Some researchers warn that people should not wrongly be diagnosed with lactose intolerance when symptoms pointing in that direction are caused by something else. According to them, the number of people with lactose intolerance is therefore greatly exaggerated (39).

Scientific findings indicate that the prevalence of lactose intolerance is grossly overestimated. Other physiologic and psychologic factors can contribute to gastrointestinal symptoms that mimic lactose intolerance. Scientific findings also indicate that people with laboratory-confirmed low levels of the enzyme lactase can consume 1 serving of milk with a meal or 2 servings of milk per day in divided doses at breakfast and dinner without experiencing symptoms.

McBean, nutrition consultant in Ann Arbor, Mich, USA

Many people who state that they are lactose intolerant turn out not to be (43-46). Many people whose laboratory result indicates that they are lactose intolerant can simply drink or eat the recommended daily amount of milk or other forms of dairy without suffering gastrointestinal complaints (44,46,47). Not only does the presence of lactose intolerance not necessarily have to lead to symptoms, conversely the familiar symptoms do not necessarily have to point to lactose intolerance (46,36,38,42). In addition, eating and drinking dairy can also increase tolerance to lactose when the amount of dairy is gradually increased. In one study, tolerance to lactose, through this gradual increase in dairy intake, increased in only ten days from 42 grams per day to 70 grams per day (49). That is almost a doubling in a week and a half! How this tolerance increases as a result is not clear. One theory is that the amount of lactase enzyme does not increase, but that the bacteria in the intestines become more effective at processing lactose (49).

Milk is therefore sometimes demonized without justification (50). This can lead to other nutritional deficiencies, including a lack of calcium (39,51). In the United States, dairy provides 73% of the calcium people consume (51). This will not be much less in our cow country, possibly even more. A calcium deficiency can lead, among other things, to osteoporosis, high blood pressure and possibly certain forms of cancer (52,53).

That is one reason why I think the elimination-challenge test should be preferred, because it simply tests in practice whether and at what amount you get symptoms when drinking milk. Several studies show the importance of personally determining your tolerance by looking at the amount of lactose at which you get symptoms (40,43,44,46,36,42).

Tolerance to lactose is greater when milk is drunk with a meal

It should be clear that the more lactose you consume, the more symptoms you get if you are intolerant to it (47,38,54). Research shows, however, that it also matters when you consume the lactose. Lactose appears to be processed better when it is consumed with a meal than when there is a long time between drinking milk, for example, and eating a meal (44,46,47,38,42,55). In one study, for instance, researchers saw that when milk was drunk on an empty stomach after 12 hours of fasting, 6 grams of lactose could be tolerated in the control group without symptoms, while symptoms only occurred from more than 12 grams when the milk was drunk with a meal (47).

The type of dairy can make a difference to tolerance

It has also been shown that the type of dairy makes a difference in the occurrence of symptoms. Whole milk appears to cause fewer symptoms than semi-skimmed milk and skimmed milk, a difference that is not caused by the difference in the amount of lactose (56,57). Chocolate milk also appears to cause fewer symptoms than normal milk (56,58). How cocoa makes lactose better tolerated is unknown.

Say cheese to cheese

Cheese in general contains much less lactose, up to 1000 times less (39). Because the amount is negligible, eating most types of cheese does not cause symptoms for people who are intolerant to lactose (36,50,59).

Galactosemia

About one in thirty thousand people in the Netherlands has no problem breaking lactose down into glucose and galactose, but does have a problem with the further processing of the resulting galactose. Once lactose has been split into glucose and galactose, the galactose must then also be converted into glucose so it can be used as fuel. Normally this is done by another enzyme, called galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase. Galactosemia is a rare hereditary disorder in which, because of a deficiency or complete absence of this enzyme, the conversion does not succeed, which can lead to an accumulation of galactose that then becomes toxic (60). This can damage the kidneys, brain, liver and intestines.

In the case of galactosemia, dairy must therefore be avoided for life. Symptoms or complaints due to a deficiency of, for example, calcium must then also be closely monitored.

Cow's milk allergy, cow's milk protein allergy

The name cow's milk allergy should not be confused with lactose intolerance or lactose allergy, because cow's milk allergy is about not tolerating the proteins in milk rather than the lactose (61). Cow's milk protein allergy is therefore a clearer term. Although allergies to protein in general do not occur, thankfully, several allergies are possible to specific sources of protein, such as protein from soy, grain ("gluten") and therefore also from milk. In most cases, as far as milk is concerned, the protein alpha S1-casein is the one that cannot be processed well (62). About 1 in 10 people is allergic to this type of protein (62). More about this protein, which may be a greater culprit in other respects, follows in part II.

Cow's milk allergy is the most common food allergy in babies. It occurs mainly at that age because the gastrointestinal tract is not yet fully developed. In most cases, the allergy has disappeared before they are four to five years old (63). Among adults, the percentage of people with a cow's milk protein allergy is between 0.1% and 0.5% (64).

Once again, enzymes are involved, in this case enzymes that must break down protein but do not always manage to do so. Complete proteins then end up in the intestines. In people with a cow's milk protein allergy, the body responds to these complete proteins by producing antibodies that lead to an allergic reaction (61). This can cause complaints such as intestinal cramps, eczema, respiratory problems, nasal complaints, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, headache and, in severe cases, an anaphylactic shock. The complaints are therefore very varied, which can make diagnosing a cow's milk protein allergy difficult.

Acne caused by milk and supplements

So the carbohydrates/lactose and especially casein protein can lead to allergic reactions. Unfortunately, whey can also lead to complaints. It regularly happens that acne is caused by whey.

The link between dairy and acne has been made more often. At Harvard, researchers tried to demonstrate this link (65). They studied 4,273 boys who were already part of a so-called prospective cohort study, in which a particular risk group is followed for a longer period. They compared diet with cases of acne to find a connection, for example by comparing boys who consumed a lot of dairy, more than twice a day, with boys who consumed very little dairy, less than once a week.

They found a clear, positive association between milk consumption and acne.

We found a positive association between intake of skim milk and acne. This finding suggests that skim milk contains hormonal constituents, or factors that influence endogenous hormones, in sufficient quantities to have biological effects in consumers.

Adebamowo CA, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts

To confirm their conclusions, the same researchers carried out a comparable study among girls (66). This time they used data from the prospective cohort study of girls, 6,094 in total aged 9-15. Using the same method as with the boys, they again found a positive association between milk and acne.

We found a positive association between intake of milk and acne. This finding supports earlier studies and suggests that the metabolic effects of milk are sufficient to elicit biological responses in consumers.

Adebamowo CA, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts

Their conclusions were also confirmed in a third, larger-scale study among 47,355 young women using different types of dairy (67). However, they still did not know which component of milk caused the acne. More clarity does seem to be emerging about the "culprit" in milk.

At St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York, a so-called case study was carried out, the results of which were published last year (68). Five boys aged 14 to 18 developed acne shortly after using whey supplements, six different brands in total, to increase muscle strength and weight for playing American football. They all responded poorly to existing acne treatments such as benzoyl peroxide and oral antibiotics. The treatments did work and the acne disappeared completely in four of them when they stopped using the whey supplement, but in one it immediately returned when whey was taken again. Based on this, the researcher suspects that it is the whey in dairy that causes acne.

 Whey protein may be the fraction of dairy products that promote acne formation. Larger studies are needed to determine the mechanism of comedogenesis.

N.B. Silverberg, St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York

A comparable case study/case report appeared shortly afterward from Brussels (69). Thierry Simonart, a dermatologist, reported last September on five bodybuilders (19-35 years old) who developed acne after using whey supplements. None of them were said to have used anabolic steroids, and all stated that they had a healthy diet. After stopping for six weeks and using usual treatment methods such as benzoyl peroxide and vitamin A creams, the signs of acne had completely disappeared.

In conclusion, these data suggest that whey protein supplementation may induce or aggravate acne.

T. Simonart, Private practice, Brussels

Researchers from Germany mainly looked at the processes by which whey can cause acne and saw the influence of whey on insulin as the main cause of acne and more serious side effects (more about milk and insulin and possible dangers of this in part II)(70).

The elimination of the whey protein-based insulinotropic mechanisms of milk will be the most important future challenge for nutrition research. Both, restriction of milk consumption or generation of less insulinotropic milk will have an enormous impact on the prevention of epidemic western diseases like obesity, diabetes mellitus, cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and acne.

B.C. Melnik, University of Osnabrück

If you suffer a lot from acne and use whey, you could therefore consider leaving whey out for a while, about six weeks, and replacing it with soy, for example, so you still get fast protein when you want it. After that, you can judge whether it made a difference or not. The whey in milk can also lead to complaints, although this will be much less in relation to whey supplements because an average whey shake contains more than 50 times as much whey as a glass of milk (30 grams vs. 0.6 grams based on 300 ml of milk).

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