The Milk Myth

When I was growing up, milk and other dairy products were considered to be among the healthiest of foods. Kids, in particular, were encouraged to drink milk liberally. It was even considered to be healthier for babies than their mother's milk and breastfeeding was generally discouraged. This was largely in response to the propaganda machine of the dairy industry which targeted parents, doctors, and heavily lobbied governments to make sure that milk was on the top of the list of healthy food choices in their various official food guides. Our society was a lot more patriarchal in those days and almost no one would ever question someone in authority like a doctor. So, if your doctor told you not to nurse your baby and put her/him on a dairy-based infant formula instead, and all through their childhood and adolescence to make sure they drank lots of the white stuff, that was what you did. It didn't matter that doctors received extremely little, if any, schooling in nutrition (not that it would have mattered much as there was very little good science behind nutrition until the last 10-20 years). They were the experts!

When it comes down to it, most doctors, even if they are among the few who are more open-minded and less stuck in a narrow reductionistic paradigm, really don't have a lot of time to keep on top of the latest research. As a result, they get most of their info from product literature provided by pharmaceutical companies and other commercial interests. Of course they have the Canadian and American Food Guides to fall back on when it comes to nutrition. But these are hugely influenced by lobbying efforts on behalf of major commercial sectors such as the dairy and meat industries.

Now, to be fair, the natural health product industry plays the same game, although they don't have the size, money and influence to do it as well as the larger, better established industries. If you go looking for information from people who work in health food stores or from many natural health practitioners (especially if they sell products), no matter how good their intentions you'll find that they are getting most of their information from biased product literature provided by the natural health product industry.

Anyway, getting back to milk, until recently most of the research out there was largely funded by the dairy industry. However, more recently there have been some decent independent studies that have been coming to very different conclusions than what the dairy industry would like us to believe. As a result, some pretty high profile researchers have begun to poke holes into some of the milk myths. For instance, see:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/talking-back/2013/07/03/got-milk-maybe-a-recipe-for-obesity-and-cancer/

Some of the myths that are questioned here are: skim milk is healthier than whole milk; milk is the best source of calcium; most of the supposed health benefits of milk are unproven. They also point out that milk consumption is associated with a number of potential negative health consequences and recommend that whole milk be consumed rather than skim milk and it should be considered an optional part of our diet (no minimum daily requirement as the various official food guides recommend) and consumed in small quantities, if at all.

I would add to that to only consume certified organic dairy products. It's interesting that many people are more inclined to purchase organic fruits and veggies but aren't as concerned about dairy and meat products. The rationale is that chemicals are sprayed directly on to plants, but this is not the case with animals. I'm sure cost is one of the factors behind these attitudes. Dairy and meat tend to be among the more costly food products and when you add the organic premium they can get pretty expensive. My answer to that is to buy organic but eat less. Most North Americans eat far too much meat and dairy anyway. Aside from the fact that commercially raised animals are unhealthy from being stressed out, fed diets that are unnatural for their species, being raised in inhumane conditions, and pumped full of drugs and hormones, toxins such as agricultural chemicals become more concentrated as you move up the food chain. Although it varies depending on the chemical and the animal, on average it is about ten times at each level. That means that, since commercially raised livestock are fed commercially grown feed, the levels of agricultural chemicals in the tissues of these animals is approximately ten times the level of the plants that they are fed. Also, many animals (even herbivores) are given feed that contains animal products which will raise the levels of these chemicals in their tissues to even more than ten times. As a result, animal products are the most important foods to eat certified organic!

Dandelion greens (Taraxacum officinale) are an excellent source of calcium,

magnesium, potassium, iron and other important trace minerals.

Getting back to milk, the dairy is the best source of calcium myth is being questioned as well. For instance, apparently bone fractures are more common in countries that have the highest dairy consumption! The authors point out that significant levels of calcium can also be obtained from leafy greens, nuts and seeds. Many herbs are a good source of calcium as well as other minerals that are necessary for the proper assimilation and utilization of calcium. These include the leaves of dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), chicory (Cichorium intybus) and nettle (Urtica dioica). Although I usually prefer to use herbs in the form of fresh plant tinctures for medicinal purposes, when they are being used for their nutritive properties it is best to take them as a tea because the amount of actual herb per unit dose is much higher to make a cup of tea than what is necessary for a dose of tincture. Most nutrients need to be consumed in much larger quantities than other more pharmacological constituents of herbs. Of course, you'll get even more minerals and other nutrients if you eat them! Many green leafy herbs are both edible and very nutritious.

Although calcium is a very important nutrient, the whole issue of how much we need is now being questioned as well. Some recent research has demonstrated that too much calcium is associated with negative health consequences, especially cardiovascular disease. For instance, check these out:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130212192030.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130204184306.htm

I included both of them because although one of the studies only found this association in men, but not women, the other one focused exclusively on women. It is interesting to note that there seems to be a stronger correlation when people take calcium supplements. It would have been interesting to see what they would have found had they taken into account the different forms of calcium that were supplemented.

Our obsession with calcium is one of the factors behind the recommendation to consume more dairy products. However, we seem to be getting carried away with this. Calcium supplements are one of the most common supplements recommended by doctors.

When I see new clients, I am often shocked at how much calcium they have been told to supplement by doctors and even other natural health practitioners. I often see people taking 50-100% the recommended daily amount. This is absurd! It is true that our body does not absorb 100% of the calcium we consume, however, the efficiency of calcium absorption increases the more we need it. It is also true that calcium levels are only high in a small percentage of foods, nevertheless there is calcium in everything that we eat (except in some heavily processed junk foods and beverages). In addition, doctors in particular often recommend the worst calcium supplements. Firstly, they recommend forms that are poorly absorbed such as calcium carbonate, which is the most common form found in pharmaceutical brands. Secondly, they often recommend supplements that only contain calcium and possibly some vitamin D. The latter is necessary for proper calcium absorption. Most calcium supplements contain 200-400 IU of vitamin D. Recent research has demonstrated that many people are deficient in vitamin D, so these amounts are not enough for most people. In addition, our body has to maintain a very delicate balance between many minerals. If some minerals are taken in excess it disturbs this balance, both by the increased availability of the supplemented minerals, and because excessive intake of some minerals will actually deplete our body of others. As a result, calcium should not be taken on its own. Ideally, at the very least it should be taken with vitamin D, magnesium, zinc and copper, but preferably with manganese, silicon and possibly a few other trace minerals as well. Usually the best way to take calcium is as part of a good multi mineral complex.

Here I am hugging a dolomite (dolostone) boulder. Dolomite is one of the sources of calcium carbonate.

I don't know about you, but I don't absorb rocks very well. However, I do enjoy hanging out with them!

In my practice, I rarely recommend calcium. If someone is a bit low in this mineral, it can usually be addressed through diet - even without dairy products. In some situations and for therapeutic purposes I may recommend it, but rarely more than 200-300 mg per day, always in a well absorbed form such as calcium citrate or ascorbate, and always in combination with a decent amount of vitamin D (at least 1,000 IU) and other minerals to balance things out.

So, lets get back to milk and other dairy products. Dairy is one of the most common food allergies or sensitivities in our society. This is related to a lot of factors that are common in our society: poor diet and lifestyle practices; lack of exercise; general toxicity; stress and other emotional and psychological factors. All of these predispose us to many chronic health conditions including allergies and food sensitivities. Add to this that most of the dairy products we consume come from sick animals; are laced with drugs, hormones, agricultural chemicals and other toxins; and that milk by nature contains proteins that are irritating to our digestive tract and, in general, is over-consumed (we are more likely to develop sensitivities to foods that we consume in excess), and it's not surprising that so many people don't tolerate it well or at all. In my practice I often find dairy allergies or sensitivities associated with obesity, diabetes, and chronic inflammatory conditions of the digestive tract, skin and respiratory system. As a result, I usually have people with these kinds of conditions reduce or even eliminate dairy from their diet, depending on the individual case.

One interesting side note, in ayurvedic and siddha medicine, two ancient healing traditions from India, they extol the benefits of milk, considering it to be one of the most perfect foods. They sometimes even recommend that herbs be boiled in milk! I once had a conversation with an ayurvedic practitioner about this. I explained that I so often see milk consumption associated with chronic health conditions. It was his belief that this is because the milk we consume in the West is from sick animals, full of chemicals, pasteurized and refrigerated. He believed that the processes of pasteurization and refrigeration denature (alter the structure of) the proteins in milk making it more harmful than beneficial. I don't know if this is true, but it's something worth considering. In India, until recently, very few people had refrigeration. They usually obtained their milk fresh each day from free ranging cattle, boiled it and either used it right away or cultured it to make curd. When I was in India in the early 80's, I still had a very severe allergy to dairy products (which I eventually overcame). Although I could not tolerate dairy products in any quantity when I was at home in Canada, I could tolerate them in small amounts over there. Apparently, there is (or was) something very different about their dairy products.

Many people in India obtain their milk from Brahma cattle (Bos indicus).

Of course, you won't get much milk from this one!

The bottom line here is that milk and other dairy products are not as beneficial as they are promoted to be; are particularly problematic for a growing segment of our population who have various kinds of sensitivities to them; and can have some serious negative health consequences when over-consumed. For those who can tolerate them, it is best to consume only certified organic dairy products, and only in moderation.

Healing Bone Fractures, Part 1 of 5

Things have really slowed down in my life and I haven't been able to post anything for a few weeks. That's because on January 30th I badly broke my lower right leg! Even though I'm an outdoorsy kind of person, I figured if I made it this far in my life without breaking any bones, maybe I never will. Well, it turns out I was wrong!

The Niagara Escarpment along the east side of the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula not far from where we were hiking.

We were hiking along a trail near the Niagara Escarpment on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula. This area is characterized by lots of dolomite rock outcroppings. Normally we would have been snowshoeing, but we got a couple of days of unseasonably warm weather and it rained a lot. The amount of snow went from 45 cm (1.5 feet) down to about 5 cm (2 inches), making it much more easy to walk in boots. While we were hiking, I stepped with my left foot into a crevice in the rock that I couldn't see because it was covered in snow. It was quite deep. I never hit bottom and all of my weight came down on my right shin on the rock. I have a clean break in my fibula just below my knee, but my tibia was shattered just above my ankle. I'll spare you the details of how we got out of there, but it was quite a trip! Had there still been enough snow to snowshoe, my foot wouldn't have fit into that crevice.

This is more like the terrain where we were hiking (and the right season!).

Because of the severity of the fracture, I needed surgery. They weren't able to get me into surgery until the following day. The injury occurred around noon on the 30th and I didn't get into surgery until around 4:30 pm on the 31st. I had to have a 25 cm (10 inch) plate screwed into my tibia to hold the pieces together. I have no cast because I need to be able to move and stretch the tendons and ligaments in my ankle and knee so they don't tighten up too much while I'm off my leg.

Here are a couple of x-ray views of my leg with the plate taken the morning after my surgery.

It's a pretty messy affair and I suspect that I will need to have surgery again at some point to remove it.

According to the surgeon, this kind of fracture takes about four months to heal. If I'm lucky, three months at the absolute minimum. During this time my leg can't bear any weight. Once it is strong enough to bear weight, I will require a month or two of physiotherapy to get the strength back in my leg. So, he's predicting that this process is going to take 4-6 months.

What the surgeon doesn't know, because it's outside his paradigm, is that I have tools available to me to accelerate the healing of my leg. I have a basic protocol for treating bone fractures that I have used to help heal other people. This is the first time I'm going to be using it on myself!

I am going to use this as an opportunity to provide an example of how to heal a bone fracture. I will provide details of exactly how I am treating this on an ongoing basis, and updates as to how my healing is progressing. The important thing to keep in mind is, although I am following a basic protocol, it needs to be fine-tuned for each specific situation. If four different people came to me with similar fractures, I would treat each person slightly different depending on their specific needs, constitution, history, etc. What I am describing is how I have adapted this protocol to my own specific needs. Nevertheless, it will provide a good example of how I treat this kind of injury.

The protocol that I use is very complex. It requires five different components all of which are important: herbal treatment, both systemic and local; homeopathic treatment; supplements that help our body heal tissue damage and rebuild bone tissue; physical therapy; and dietary adjustments to support the healing of this type of injury.

I am going to begin by providing details of what I used in the interim when I didn't have everything available to me to complete the protocol. Then I will document what I am using and my progress in a continuing series of posts.

In the early evening on the day of the fracture, when it became apparent that the surgery wasn't going to happen that day, I had myself checked out and we went back to the cottage we were renting where I knew I would be more comfortable and be able to eat some good food and make use of whatever herbs and supplements I had on hand. My partner, Monika, tried to find some of the additional remedies I needed but was only able to obtain homeopathic Arnica in a 30C potency. Homeopathic Arnica is an essential remedy for any kind of sudden traumatic injury. It reduces swelling, bruising and pain, and supports the healing process. While we were still there and through the evening I took it every hour. I didn't sleep very well and took it every couple of hours through the night as well, and continued taking it every hour the next day up until my surgery. I resumed it when I awoke on Friday.

Mountain arnica (Arnica montana) is mostly used topically by herbalists because it is very irritating and mildly toxic when taken systemically.
It should only be used systemically by experienced herbalists. In homeopathic potencies this is not an issue.

Homeopaths rarely use homeopathic remedies in combination with other modalities. Although I am not a homeopath, I have a good understanding of the system and sometimes use homeopathic remedies in combination with herbs, especially for the treatment of acute conditions. In order to treat a situation holistically, I have found that it is best if we address it on as many different levels and in as many different ways as possible. The more severe the injury or illness, the more important it is to do this.

At the cottage I also had available to me a general herbal tonic formulation containing 1:5 fresh herb tinctures that provided some benefit in terms of reducing inflammation and pain, increasing circulation and supporting the healing process. It also contained some liver herbs that would help protect me from the side-effects of all the medications I was going to have to take before and after the surgery. I upped the dose from 3 ml into the acute dosage range at 6 ml. Because I was going to have to fast the following day before my surgery, I only had one dose before my dinner, but I resumed it as soon as I returned from the hospital after my surgery. I also had some supplements including vitamins C (calcium ascorbate), D and E, zinc, polyphenols, and a good quality low potency multivitamin with a very good trace mineral complex. I took one of everything and two vitamin C with my dinner, and resumed these when I returned after my surgery as well. The last thing I had is a herbal sedative which I travel with because sometimes I have difficulty sleeping when I'm in an unfamiliar environment. I took this before bed and a couple more doses through the night. I didn't sleep very well that night, mostly because I had to sleep on my back which I never do, but it did help me sleep a bit and reduce the pain and inflammation.

Up to this point, except for the insane pain when I actually broke my leg, as long as my leg didn't get banged or twisted the pain wasn't that bad. The Arnica was definitely a factor in this.

After the surgery, the doctor wanted me to stay another night to make sure I didn't end up with a kind of serious swelling that can occur with this kind of injury, or an infection, and that my pain was under control. However, I was determined to get out of there as quickly as possible so that I could get onto the remedies that I needed. I stopped dosing myself with the intravenous hydromorphone (a semi-synthetic derivative of morphine) as soon as I woke up so that they would see that I was managing the pain and asked to be disconnected from everything. The surgeon saw I was doing OK and I managed to get out by 1 pm. He gave me a prescription for a drug containing 300 mg of acetaminophen and 30 mg of codeine phosphate. I didn't fill the prescription. We did pick up a product containing 500 mg of acetaminophen without the codeine. I took one tablet on Friday evening shortly before bed when the pain in my leg got pretty intense for a few hours. That was all I used.

It is important to note that we should not use non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as acetylsalicylic acid, ibuprofen and naproxen, to treat the pain and inflammation associated with bone fractures as these drugs interfere with bone formation. Drinking alcohol also interferes somewhat with bone formation. This is mainly a concern for moderate to heavy drinkers, nevertheless, it is best drink very little or not at all. Smoking has a more pronounced negative impact on bone formation than alcohol.

We went back to the cottage and stayed for the next three days. Some friends were coming up for the weekend and we asked them to bring me some additional homeopathic remedies. At this point my interim protocol was as follows:

Homeopathics: Arnica 200C, Hypericum 200C and Symphytum 200C taken individually, four pellets per dose alternated throughout the day every 1-2 hours so that I was taking each remedy 4 times per day. Hypericum is a specific for nerve damage and nerve pain. Although I did not have any numbness or tingling, indicating that there probably wasn't any nerve damage from the original injury, there was a risk of nerve damage resulting from the surgery. Symphytum is a specific for healing bones. I tend to use Hypericum and Symphytum both in homeopathic form and in crude tincture form as you will see later. The two forms taken together are very synergistic, working much better than either the tincture or homeopathic individually.

Common comfrey (Symphytum officinale) is a specific for bone fractures, both in herbal and homeopathic forms.

Crude herb preparations must be used carefully as it contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which are liver toxins.

This is not an issue when taken in homeopathic potencies.

Herbs: I continued taking the tincture formulation I had with me at a higher dose until I was able to get home and formulate something specific for my injury. I took 6 ml in a bit of water on an empty stomach 10-15 minutes before each meal. I also continued to take the sedative formulation, 6 ml before bed and additional 3 ml doses through the night, if necessary.

Supplements: Making the best use of the supplements that I had available, I took the following (these are the doses of the nutrients that are particularly important for bone repair as provided by the individual products I had available to me):

• With breakfast: Vitamin A 3,500 IU, beta-carotene 7,500 mg, vitamin C 1,325 mg (from calcium ascorbate), vitamin D2 200 IU, vitamin D3 1,000 IU, vitamin K1 50 mcg, vitamin K2 10 mcg, calcium 152 mg (ascorbate), copper 0.5 mg (citrate), manganese 0.5 mg (citrate), zinc 5 mg (citrate), selenium 50 mcg (chelate), boron 0.35 mg (chelate), lutein 0.5 mg, bioflavonoids 100 mg (citrus extract), quercetin 100 mg, anthocyanidin 100 mg (mixed berry extract).
• With lunch: Vitamin C 1,200 mg (from calcium ascorbate), vitamin D3 1,000 IU, calcium 137 mg (ascorbate), quercetin 100 mg, anthocyanidin 100 mg (mixed berry extract).
• With dinner: Vitamin A 3,500 IU, beta-carotene 7,500 mg, vitamin C 1,325 mg (from calcium ascorbate), vitamin D2 200 IU, vitamin D3 1,000 IU, vitamin E 200 IU (mixed tocopherols), vitamin K1 50 mcg, vitamin K2 10 mcg, calcium 152 mg (ascorbate), copper 0.5 mg (citrate), manganese 0.5 mg (citrate), zinc 20 mg (citrate), selenium 50 mcg (chelate), boron 0.35 mg (chelate), lutein 0.5 mg, bioflavonoids 100 mg (citrus extract), quercetin 100 mg, anthocyanidin 100 mg (mixed berry extract).

Some of these are ingredients from a multivitamin that I took with breakfast and dinner. It is a good quality low potency multi with an excellent trace mineral content. It does not contain iron, calcium or magnesium because iron should only be taken when absolutely necessary and the amount of calcium and magnesium that can be included in a multivitamin is too low to be relevant. I did not list all of the ingredients of the multivitamin, only those that are important for bone repair. However, the full range of nutrients in the multi are important to support healing in general. In addition, I was also taking omega-3 fatty acids in the form of organic flax seed oil, 2-3 teaspoons taken throughout the day mixed in food (but not heated).

Other: From the moment I was able to stand after my injury I spent a lot of time wiggling my toes to help with circulation and to keep my feet as flexible as possible. Most other forms of movement were not possible until a few days after my surgery due to the severe swelling of my leg. Whenever I was sitting (always with my leg up to reduce swelling), a periodically massaged my knee and lower thigh to help prevent them from tightening up as much as possible. I was also doing deep breathing exercises in which I focused on "feeling" the life force energy or qi circulating through my body, particularly in my leg.

This is the end of my first post on the ongoing saga of my leg. In Part 2 I will provide the details of the complete protocol that I put myself on once I returned home.