Milk?

[Aractus]

I need some good opinions here... Tough to find answers on the internet.

Anyways to make a long story short... I'm on omeprazole  its a medicine to help Acid Reflux and other sorts of stomach related issue's. Anyways it increases the risk of Osteoporosis... I must increase my calcium rate I guess? Which scares me because I think I am slender by not drinking a drink full of added sugar. But, anyways my argument is... is it natural for "us" humans to drink from another species? I can't think of any other species that does... besides maybe putting a small bowl of warm milk for the cat. I have searched up and down on Google and get a million different opinions but nothing concrete with scientific resources... of course besides the "Government's Recommendation" on Dairy Farm's websites.

So, is there any biologists or someone with a good knowledge or maybe even a opinion also on this?

BTW: I at the moment have decided to use Almond Milk sense it has much more calcium and even the doctor for some reason shunned the idea of regular milk but didn't come out and say it.

Thanks! Sound Off!

As a nutrition student I'll give you the answer. No we didn't drink milk before we domesticated the aurochs 10,000 years ago. Complete nutrition is important for physiological health (and as it happens, also for psychological health). Nutrient deficiency is very common.

To answer the first part of your question, yes geneticists have identified two genes responsible for Lactase persistence, in China it seems over 90% of people lack this gene. Here in Australia - as multicultural as we are - something like 95% of people have at least one of the genes. Those numbers are taken from scientific journals which studied cohorts, so don't take them as gospel, larger studies would need to be done to confirm the actual numbers.

Dairy is very good for us, so long as you can digest the sugar. If you can't digest it you can buy the "lactose free" milk which has already had the lactose broken down into galactose/glucose, and a lactose-intolerant person should be able to digest it fine.

The second thing I would say is that plants contain lectins and they bind to nutrients in your intestine and prevent you from absorbing them. And if you're consuming plant-based calcium you will need more v.s. animal-source. Eg: "Compared to milk, calcium absorption from dried beans is about 50% and from spinach, 10%." To paraphrase, you'd need 10x as much calcium if you were getting it from spinach rather than milk. You'd have to look up almond absorption, but it may only be 50% or so.

For calcium the EAR for someone your age is 840mg/day and the RDI is 1,000mg/day. It's not just calcium that strengthens bones and prevents osteoporosis, it's magnesium, calcium, Vitamin C and Vitamin D. Potassium deficiency is believed to stimulate the body to demineralise bones. So does Vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is synthesised from cholesterol, but is dependant upon skin exposure to UVB radiation. Like B12, the only dietary sources of D3 are meat (fish oil, fatty fish, egg yoke or beef liver). Vegan supplements are produced using algae. Although Vitamin D deficiency is very common, there isn't yet a known EAR. The AI is 5.0 µg /day.

Finally, milk is one of the richest sources of calcium. This will scare you. The average Australian diet has 60% of daily calcium from dairy. The other 40% comes (mainly) from fortified cereals, fortified soy products, bony fish, legumes and (some) nuts. So the RDI is based on people getting 60% from dairy, if they were to get it all from something that has only 50% absorption compared with dairy then you'd need to consume 60% more calcium to reach the RDI (i.e. 1,600mg/day). It'd be a very similar story for anywhere in Europe or North America - the RDI calcium would be based on people consuming at that 60:40 ratio or so. Around 3% of the population need to consume higher than the RDI to reach their requirement, RDI's are based on including about 97% of the population, so even consuming the RDI is not a complete guarantee, but it's a start.

Here's another link to help you: