Should Black People Avoid Milk?

Tcrazyjam

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hello,

i am from germany and have a friend from africa. He wants to try RP diet, and told me he has no obvious symptoms after drinking milk, allthough his mother is very lactose intolerant.

I have read that over 80 % of african people are lactose intolerant. so my question is, should i tell him to avoid milk and just buy lactose-free milk instead?

maybe his symptoms are covert?

thanks

David
 

pboy

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I know many Hispanics and Asians also don't do well on milk. Pretty much anyone seems fine with butter and cheese, but milk and yogurt can be a challenge for many. If he seems to show no symptoms then its really a by desire thing
 

Mittir

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I remember reading a study that tested the theory that African- Americans
are lactose intolerant. They found that like most people lactose intolerance
is a cured by repeated exposure to lactose. RP mentioned that it takes about
3 weeks for body to fully digest milk if one start drinking milk everyday.
In most studies they use starting amount as 1 glass or half a glass
each time with meal.( that is 1 and a half glass of milk in a day)
If you google you will be able to find that study.
There was a similar study on Chinese- American people with same result.
 
OP
T

Tcrazyjam

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Sorry, i did not find a study that says exposure to lactose will cure intolarance of afro-americans. where did you find it? :D
 

pboy

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this is an interesting perspective, my own belief...can't say its been proven, but I believe every time you eat food its sort of like a gamble to your body..."do we muster up the resources to digest this, hoping to get more back in return?" Or, "Is this not worth the effort to digest, so we'll pretty much pass it out hardly changed...expecting something better in the near future"....in other words, the body wants to spend the most resources digesting the easiest, highest return foods, and only attempts to digest difficult foods when that's all it knows its gonna get, or if theres nothing else better coming in the near future. If all you had was milk, or were forced to drink it every day, and had little other sources of whatever milk provides, and you made the conscious choice that milk would be something you would regularly consume....then the body will be like..."ok, we better do the best we can and try to get at least something from this food" and it will try to re express lactase
 

jyb

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pboy said:
this is an interesting perspective, my own belief...can't say its been proven, but I believe every time you eat food its sort of like a gamble to your body..."do we muster up the resources to digest this, hoping to get more back in return?" Or, "Is this not worth the effort to digest, so we'll pretty much pass it out hardly changed...expecting something better in the near future"....in other words, the body wants to spend the most resources digesting the easiest, highest return foods, and only attempts to digest difficult foods when that's all it knows its gonna get, or if theres nothing else better coming in the near future. If all you had was milk, or were forced to drink it every day, and had little other sources of whatever milk provides, and you made the conscious choice that milk would be something you would regularly consume....then the body will be like..."ok, we better do the best we can and try to get at least something from this food" and it will try to re express lactase

Not sure, because if you introduce dairy and finally get that ton of calcium that you need to improve the hormone balance, then in turn it becomes easier for the body to function including digestion.
 

pboy

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yea...it was sort of just a wondering thought I had...I remember reading a study where an animal when forced to only eat a certain food, unnatural to its diet, eventually
for the sake of surviving, not thriving or in an optimum state, but begin to digest the food...that makes sense to me. The body hangs on to wanting to run optimally, but if it has to, it will sacrifice optimum'ness for survivalability and can shift more of its resources to digestion and/or immunity under those conditions, like if you were sick
 

pboy

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^ not diet advice though, just a thought...as for lactose, it could be totally different
 

Atalanta

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I think your friend should be very careful about drinking a lot of milk. I do not believe that a Peat style diet is appropriate for most black people, particularly those who do not have much white ancestry.

There are genuine differences among the races. Many people are afraid to admit this fact, because it sounds racist. We are all human, of course, and I do not believe that any "race" is superior to another. And I know many peatarians don't like the idea of an ancestral diet. But it is a fact that the races evolved under different environmental conditions and that created different adaptive processes.

There are studies which show that blacks retain calcium much better than whites. Even though blacks have a lower calcium intake than whites, they are much less prone to osteoporosis and calcification of the arteries. Also, black people have a lower requirement for vitamin D. This makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary perspective. Milk became an important source of nutrition for whites in Europe, while most black Africans remained hunter-gathers. Whites were getting an abundance of calcium, so their bodies did not need to conserve it. Dark skin inhibits vitamin D synthesis because melanin is a natural sunblock. So most black people's ancestors adapted to conditions of low calcium and low vitamin d and high magnesium and potassium. In addition, many black people are sensitive to sodium and it raises their blood pressure. If I were an African from a non milk drinking tribe, I would take that under serious consideration. Lactose intolerance is not the only potential problem with milk so even if that intolerance can be overcome, it may still not be healthy for a black person.

Let's be honest here. There is very little research done on blacks in America or Europe, where most scientific research takes place. Results from research on whites are applied to blacks with no regard to possible biological differences between the two groups. Unless you can find scientific evidence that black people from non milk drinking tribes can thrive on lots of calcium and salt, I would advice your African friend to proceed with caution. He need not avoid dairy and salt altogether, but guzzling quarts of milk daily and adding tons of salt to everything may not be good for him.

If he does give the Peat diet a try, advice him to be flexible and don't become dogmatic. Stop as soon as there is any sign of problems and do not be afraid to go to the doctor to get checked out even if he is not experiencing any problems. Some problems, like high blood pressure, have no symptoms. He should not try to convince himself that any problems experienced are caused by his metabolism repairing itself and ignore them. I know you guys don't like doctors (I don't either, but they can be helpful at times) and that I risk being banned for suggesting that someone visit a doctor and that Peat's dietary advice is not for everyone.

But I know what I am talking about. I encouraged a black friend to try a Peat style diet with lots of milk and salt. Before starting the diet, she had no real health problems and was normal weight. A couple months into the diet, she developed fluid retention, even with lots of salt and her joints became stiff. Her blood pressure went through the roof. It was so high that the doctor was afraid to send her home. I advised her to stop the milk and salt and to go back to her regular diet. In about a month her blood pressure was down and the fluid retention was gone and her joints started to loosen up. I believe she was ingesting more calcium and sodium than her body needs for optimal health and that caused high blood pressure and calcium deposition in her joints.

All black people are not the same, of course, but this as an example of what can go wrong. I am so glad she went to the doctor because who knows if she would have soon ended up having a stroke. And I would have been partly responsible for being too eager to tell everyone to follow Ray Peat. Peat dietary recommendations are not for everyone and it is arrogant and dangerous to assume that they are.
 

Spokey

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It seems likely that black people with Maasai heritage would probably be okay.
 
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So are we doing the whole evolution thing now? Low density foods are the real danger, they trick you into thinking they are more efficient at net energy balance after digestion. I'd like to see a Caucasian eat five grams of calcium a day like some tribes do.
 

Mittir

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This is one of the study i was talking about, i remember reading the full text.
After a quick google search i found this abstract. There are other studies too.

Improved lactose digestion and intolerance among African-American adolescent girls fed a dairy-rich diet.
Pribila BA1, Hertzler SR, Martin BR, Weaver CM, Savaiano DA.
Author information
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
To determine whether African-American adolescent girls who were fed a dairy-rich diet for 21 days could adapt to lactose, experiencing an overall improvement in lactose tolerance as well as a decrease in hydrogen gas production.
DESIGN:
Twenty-one-day dietary intervention study.
SUBJECTS/SETTING:
Seventeen of 21 African-American girls (aged 11 to 15 years) enrolled in a calcium metabolism study chose to participate in the lactose tolerance study. Subjects were screened for any diseases, conditions, or medications that might alter calcium metabolism or colonic fermentation. Subjects were housed in a fraternity on the Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind, campus, and were supervised 24 hours a day.
INTERVENTION:
Subjects consumed a dairy-based diet averaging 1,200 mg calcium and 33 g lactose per day for 21 days. Lactose digestion was assessed by an 8-hour breath hydrogen test on days 1 and 21, and symptoms of intolerance (abdominal pain, bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea) were evaluated hourly on a ranked scale during the breath hydrogen tests and once each evening during the 21-day feeding period.
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:
A comparison of breath hydrogen production and gastrointestinal symptoms at the beginning and end of the study.
STATISTICAL ANALYSES PERFORMED:
The Wilcoxon signed ranks test was used to compare the area under the curve for the 2 breath hydrogen tests. Spearman's p test for trend was used to determine whether there was a change in symptoms. All statistical analyses were 2-tailed and significance was set at P = .05.
RESULTS:
Fourteen of the 17 subjects had lactose maldigestion. Breath hydrogen excretion decreased significantly (P < .03) from the beginning (148.3 +/- 27.0 ppm x hours) to the end (100.7 +/- 19.3 ppm x hours) of the 21-day period. Gastrointestinal symptoms were negligible during both the breath hydrogen tests as were symptoms during the 21-day period.
APPLICATIONS/CONCLUSIONS:
The diet was well tolerated by the subjects. Furthermore, the decrease in breath hydrogen suggests colonic adaptation to the high-lactose diet. The results indicate that lactose maldigestion should not be a restricting factor in developing adequate calcium diets for this population. The existence of lactose maldigestion does not result in lactose intolerance in this population when it is fed a dairy-rich diet.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10812376

Here is a quote from an article

However, there is evidence that significantly fewer African-Americans are lactose intolerant than previously reported. According to a report by the National Medical Association, only about 24 percent of African-Americans consider themselves to be lactose intolerant.
http://efnep.ucanr.edu/files/101690.pdf
 

kiran

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Such_Saturation said:
So are we doing the whole evolution thing now? Low density foods are the real danger, they trick you into thinking they are more efficient at net energy balance after digestion. I'd like to see a Caucasian eat five grams of calcium a day like some tribes do.

I'm Indian, not Caucasian, but I get about 3.5-4g of Ca in a day.
 
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kiran said:
Such_Saturation said:
So are we doing the whole evolution thing now? Low density foods are the real danger, they trick you into thinking they are more efficient at net energy balance after digestion. I'd like to see a Caucasian eat five grams of calcium a day like some tribes do.

I'm Indian, not Caucasian, but I get about 3.5-4g of Ca in a day.

Indeed it is perfectly normal to do so.
 

pboy

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mittir nice post, I think that's the case with many foods...I think you've mentioned that before, body adapts to incoming potential sources or nourishment. I think people claming issues with dairy and casein its probably more from fermented dairy, or the additives. Ive been drinking whole milk for a year or more now...the other day I figured id mess with low fat/skim milk to see how it was, the skim had vit A and D added. Ive used nonfat milk powder before with no additives and it didn't taste as good but no post bad effect. The fluid skim milk with additives caused red near acne spots within a day, and lingered for the next 2-3. I haven't had any acne in many years...so that was a huge indicator for me. It tasted astringent also. Yogurt and cheese sometimes provoke a near allergy type response...but I know its not lactose or casein or anything because pure whole milk digests better than probably anything else for me. When I was a vegan for a couple years, then added milk back in...there was some gas but nothing like what people describe, less than eating an apple raw or beans or something. It might have even been something else I was eating...so yea, I think its like celiac and gluten sensitivity. There might be a few (less than 1%) of people who are actually allergic to dairy, but probably everyone else is eating a bad diet and falsely blaming the dairy on any problem they may have in their life, or using sub par dairy with additives or fermented forms
(btw I don't think gluten is ideal or even good, its gas and potentially even serotonin forming, high phosphate and all that...but most people are not allergic like they claim, its just a marketing 'are you in the cool group gluten free' kind of thing. To be honest, most starches are just a hint less bad than wheat..but that's a side note)
 

Filip1993

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kiran said:
Such_Saturation said:
So are we doing the whole evolution thing now? Low density foods are the real danger, they trick you into thinking they are more efficient at net energy balance after digestion. I'd like to see a Caucasian eat five grams of calcium a day like some tribes do.

I'm Indian, not Caucasian, but I get about 3.5-4g of Ca in a day.

How do you get that much calcium in a day Kiran? Do you supplement eggshell calcium?
 

chrismeyers

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Anybody can digest milk. 100% guaranteed. And the way to prove this is the following. Fast for 2 days, empty your house of all food, on the 3rd day load up your fridge with milk only (and no other food available). You will be hungry, you will digest the milk within a day max, and you will be fine. The body can learn to process mostly any food to keep you alive.
 

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