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The Dairy Education Board: San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

 

 

San Francisco Chronicle

On Early Sexual Maturity and Milk Hormones

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By Robert Cohen Executive Director

Sunday, 11 June 2000

Early Sexual Maturity and Milk Hormones

By Robert Cohen

 

June is that special month honoring dads and grads. I have been blessed

with three daughters; the first in high school, the second in middle school, and

the third in elementary school. The excitement of three graduations recently

produced a sense of nostalgia, and a trip to my attic located a sought-after

goal; a box of dad's " old " school photos. My youngest daughter is in sixth

grade, and my own sixth grade photograph brought about pleasant memories. It

also triggered a surprise. Most of the boys in my class looked sharp in their

Cub Scout uniforms, and our crew cuts depicted the symbolic hairstyle of the

early 60's. Photos of my eleven-year-old friends resemble today's young boys.

Little has changed, and generations of boys have been made of frogs and snails

and puppy dog tails. Today's little girls, though, are shockingly different.

Eleven-year old girls from my day were flat-chested. There is no denying the

photographic evidence. A scan of today's pre-teen schoolyard cannot disguise the

number of large-busted sexually mature girls. A recent series of phone calls to

my friends confirmed that my own experience was not unusual. Today's girls are

very different. In my own sixth grade photo, there was Gail with pigtails, and

Ellen with her irresistible smile, hands neatly folded on her desk. One little

girl after another exhibited none of the budding signs of early sexual

development that baffle today's sociologists and endocrinologists.

 

Today, little girls are made up of more than just sugar, spice, and

everything nice. These girls of the twenty-first century are maturing earlier

than last generation's children, and something is very different about their

womanly physical attributes and behavior. Could there be a food link to this

mystery?

 

In 1970, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA),

the dairy industry produced 2.2 billion pounds of cheese. The population of the

United States was 203 million, which translates to an average of 10.8 pounds of

cheese per person. By 1990, America's population had grown to 248 million, and

Americans were eating more cheese, 6 billion pounds worth. That's an average of

24 pounds per person. In 1994, the average American consumed 27.7 pounds of

cheese. As we pass from one millennium into another, America's per-capita cheese

consumption has broken the 30-pound per person level. America's rate of cheese

consumption is skyrocketing. Since ten pounds of milk are required to produce

just one pound of cheese, three hundred pounds of milk are used to manufacture

that thirty pounds of cheese. The USDA publishes yearly food consumption data.

In 1999, the average American consumed a combined 5 ounces per day of meat and

chicken, and 29.2 ounces of milk and dairy products. That's 666 pounds per year

per American of dairy products, making this group the largest component of

America's diet. Concentrated milk in the form of increased cheese consumption

means that concentrated hormones are being consumed.

 

Every sip of cow's milk contains 59 different bioactive hormones,

according to endocrinologist Clark Grosvenor in the Journal of Endocrine Reviews

in 1992. Milk has always been a hormonal delivery system, providing nursing

infants with nature's perfect food for the young of each species. Thousands of

studies published in respected peer-reviewed scientific journals report that

lactoferrins, immunoglobulins, and hormones in human breast milk provide

enormous benefit for nursing humans. In other words, hormones in milk work to

exert powerful effects. Each species of mammal has a different formula. Cow's

milk contains hormones, and nursing on cow's milk will deliver these hormones to

the human body.

 

As a little girl becomes a big girl, then a mature woman, she will

naturally produce in her lifetime the equivalent of only one tablespoon of

estrogen. Hormones work on a nanomolecular lever, which means that it takes only

a billionth of a gram to produce a powerful biological effect. Should little

girls be encouraged to pop estrogen, progesterone, and prolactin pills each day?

If they drink cow's milk, that is just what they are doing. If they eat cheese

and ice cream, they ingest concentrated forms of these hormones.

 

Is early sexual maturity a bad thing, healthwise? Dr. Catherine Berkey, of

Brigham Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, examined data from 65,000

participants in the Harvard Nurses' Health Study. Her findings were published in

the journal Cancer in 1999. Of the participants, 806 developed breast cancer

before menopause and 1,485 developed breast cancer after menopause. Dr. Berkey's

comment: " Earlier menarche and taller adult height were predictive of elevated

breast carcinoma risk. Our work provided evidence that breast [cancer] risk is

influenced by preadulthood factors, and thus prevention efforts that begin in

childhood and adolescence may someday be useful. "

 

Is it possible to do a controlled scientific study testing this theory?

Such a study was actually performed on an entire nation. There is one country

where milk consumption was unknown before 1946. In Japan, in every year since

1946, 20,000 persons from 6,100 households have been interviewed and their diets

carefully analyzed along with their weights and heights and other factors such

as cancer rates and age of puberty (the last measured by the onset of

menstruation in young girls). The results of the study were published in

Preventive Medicine by Kagawa in 1978.

 

Japan had been devastated by losing a war and was occupied by American

troops. Americanization included dietary changes. Milk and dairy products were

becoming a significant part of the Japanese diet. According to this study, the

per-capita yearly dietary intake of dairy products in 1950 was only 5.5 pounds.

Twenty- five years later, the average Japanese ate 117.4 pounds of milk and

dairy products.

 

In 1950, the average twelve-year old Japanese girl was 4'6 " tall and

weighed 71 pounds. By 1975, the average Japanese girl, after changing her diet

to include milk and dairy products containing 59 different bioactive hormones,

had grown an average of 4 1/2 inches and gained 19 pounds. In 1950, the average

Japanese girl had her first menstrual cycle at the age of 15.2 years. Twenty

five years later, after a daily intake of estrogen and progesterone from milk,

the average Japanese girl was ovulating at the age of 12.2 years, three years

younger. Never before had such a dramatic dietary change been seen in such a

unique population study.

 

Little girls do not take birth control pills (those hormones are produced

from horse urine). Little girls do not inject steroids, and do not require

estrogen replacement therapy. Little girls are born with bodies that are

genetically pre-programmed to transform them into women. By drinking cow's milk,

little girls become big girls long before Mother Nature intended.

 

Robert Cohen