It's National Women's Health Week - a reminder to women to take care of themselves and to make their health a priority. From puberty to menopause, and all the fun hormonal stuff in between, diet plays a HUGE factor in all of it.

Several things came to mind as I reflected on the most important things women can do for their health. But the topic of dairy kept coming to the forefront for now, so let's talk about why giving up dairy is so important. Dairy foods (milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, cream, and ice cream) are not the health foods the dairy industry has taught us to believe all these years.

Here's why in a nutshell:

• Hormones (which are needed to grow an 80-lb. calf into a 600-800 lb. cow in under a year). Dairy contains hormones, including the IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor 1), which sends a signal to our cells to trigger growth. The more of this hormone in our bloodstream, the higher the risk of ‘growing’ several types of cancer, especially breast and prostate cancer.
• Estrogen. Ladies, it's not the soybean to be concerned about (which does not raise blood estrogen levels). Cow's milk is the largest source of mammalian estrogen in today's diet. In fact, dairy foods account for 60-70% of the estrogen that comes from food. Elevated estrogen is a factor in all sorts of women's issues - PMS, irregular period, fibroids, dysplasia, infertility, cancer, hot flashes, and other issues.
• Bad for your bones! Contrary to the dairy industry's marketing messages, cow's milk is actually detrimental to bone health! Dairy (and meats) contain phosphoric and sulfuric acids which our bodies must buffer to survive. In order to maintain a healthy pH balance between the acidity and alkalinity levels in the blood, the body goes into defense mode by drawing calcium directly from our bones to act as the buffer to those acids. Countries that consume the most dairy and calcium supplements have the highest fracture rates.
• Saturated Fat & Cholesterol. Dairy is loaded with with saturated fat and cholesterol, with CHEESE being the highest source of saturated fat in the American diet. Saturated fat - which is solid at room temperature -increases the risk for heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, and many other diseases.
• Casein. Casein is a dairy protein which has been proven to initiate cancerous tumors. The research of Dr. T. Colin Campbell in The China Study demonstrated that cancer cells in rats could be turned on or off by varying the amount of casein from 5% to 20% of calories; and his follow-up research on thousands of people in China confirmed it. Dr. Campbell states that “casein is the most relevant chemical carcinogen ever identified.”

Is low-fat dairy any better? No, it isn't. When the fat is removed, the protein concentration increases, so it's trading one set of problems for another.

For a full description of these bullet points (and more), read the entire article here.

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