I watched an interesting presentation from the 7th International Conference of Nutrition and Medicine that occurred July 26th-27th, 2019. Dr. Neal Barnard reviewed the adverse consequences of cheese on health. Did you know that a two ounce (60mL) serving of edam contains 500 mg of sodium? Velveeta is worse - a two ounce serving contains 800 mg!
The bad news does not stop there. Substances in cheese bind to the opioid (narcotic) receptor in the brain. This is the same receptor that morphine attaches to and makes it addictive. The worst compound in cheese is morphiceptin which has 1/10th the binding capacity of morphine!!
Researchers did a study. They found that women that survived breast cancer had a 49% increased risk of death if they consumed one or more servings of dairy each day when compared with survivors who had a half or less servings of dairy each day. (JNCI 2013;105:616-623.)
During this presentation, he gave an example of a young, childbearing woman who was diagnosed with endometriosis. Her doctor wanted to remove her uterus to treat the endometriosis. This would have prevented her from having her biological children. She gave up dairy and her endometriosis disappeared! Milk can also lower sperm counts. Milk products contain a great deal of estrogen. This is because milk comes from pregnant or nursing cows.
Dr. Barnard also mentioned that asthma and allergies get better when people stop dairy. He said that there is not much research yet. I will keep my eye on his research and see if he tackles this issue.
Dairy is a difficult food to ditch. It has an addictive property. It has many calories. It has a great deal of salt. Please go easy on yourself when trying to eliminate dairy from your diet. Any reduction is beneficial to your health.
