Should humans be drinking the milk of other animals is a question that has been on many people’s minds. There have been many discussions on this query in recent times and whether or not drinking other animals’ milk is good for human beings. In some of these numerous debates, some milk lovers say milk is a power food essential for growth and healthy bones. Other individuals that don’t support the drinking of other animal’s milk say it is wrong. These individuals discourage drinking other animal’s milk, stating that it can cause cancer and heart disease.
Why Humans Started Drinking Milk
For people to gulp down the milk of other mammals, they have to squeeze it out from the animal’s breasts. Most humans will go through this long hustle to get a glass of the white stuff because they believe milk plays a vital role in all mammals’ life, right from birth. Additionally, many people started drinking milk because they found out it is very nutritious. Milk is rich in fat, protein, sugar, and micronutrients like calcium and vitamin D. Most people will choose to drink milk because it offers excellent nutritional value to the human body.
Should Humans Be Drinking Other Animals Milk?
Human beings have a very unusual relationship with milk. Humans are the only animals that continue to drink milk after weaning off a mother’s milk. A biological reason this is odd reveals that when human beings are babies, their bodies make an enzyme known as lactase to digest lactose. Lactose is a naturally occurring sugar in a mother’s milk.
About 70% of humans lose the lactase enzyme and the ability to digest lactose when they get older. Due to the loss of this enzyme, most humans are lactose intolerant. When an individual with lactose intolerance drink milk, it gives them stomach cramps, diarrhoea, and nausea. Furthermore, when individuals such as this drink milk, it makes them feel bloated. Most people in Asian populations haven’t adapted to tolerating dairy milk. This effect is because they lose the ability to produce lactase to digest lactose.
However, about 30% of the human population continue to produce lactase. These people do so even as they grow older and stop drinking their mothers’ milk. Most of these individuals are Northern Europeans who have farmed cattle for thousands of years. These individuals have evolved over the years and can tolerate dairy milk with the help of a genetic mutation.
Issues Causing Worry Due to Milk Consumption
Drinking other animals’ milk over the years has revealed to the human population that there is a link between milk consumption and cardiovascular disease. This disease is believed to be caused due to milk consumption because of milk’s saturated fat content. However, the researchers further found out that an individual has to drink one liter of milk every day to have an increased risk of heart disease.
Another issue that causes worry due to milk consumption is cancer risk because of the hormones in cow’s milk. Humans milk the cattle when they are pregnant, estrogen hormone gets produced in the cow’s milk, which is believed to cause health effects in humans. However, scientists revealed that the level of estrogen in cow’s milk is too low to cause health effects in human beings.
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