Dairy is important for the body's overall health, but could you be eating too much dairy?
Unfortunately, the answer isn't black and white, even if you are a person who can tolerate
dairy without issues.
According to science, this is what happens when you eat too many dairy products.
The right amount of dairy is three cups a day, right?
That is, after all, what the USDA advises.
Yet this answer isn't so cut and dry.
If you are at all lactose intolerant, you may find three cups to be way, way too much.
It all depends on how much lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, your body produces.
Yuri Saito Loftus, an assistant professor at the Mayo Clinic, told WebMD:
"That does vary a little bit from individual to individual.
We don't know 100% what controls that.
Presumably, it's genetically determined."
For most people, determining an ideal amount of dairy products calls for trial and error,
as there's no strict guidelines that determine how an individual is going to react to dairy.
But don't worry, it might not be a big deal if you don't hit that magic number, especially
if you have a mixed diet, and get your calcium from other sources.
Consuming too much dairy can lead to an unpleasant experience for you, and the ones around you.
Karen Ansel, registered dietitian nutritionist, explained to Self:
"Even though dairy is one of the healthiest foods you can eat, it can definitely cause
gas and bloating for some people."
In most cases, this gas and bloating stems from lactose intolerance, which affects 65
percent of the world's population.
If you feel uncomfortable after drinking a tall glass of milk, you should know that many
people can handle smaller servings, two to four ounces at a time, without side effects.
You may also find that yogurt and hard cheeses are easier on your stomach.
Still, if you find yourself clutching your belly 30 minutes to a couple hours after eating
too much dairy, lactose intolerance is likely the culprit.
While you may be fine with one glass of milk, that second glass may have put you over your
limit.
Although it's not advised to eat more dairy than is comfortable, cutting out dairy entirely
is not always best, either.
Ansel says:
"In fact, totally scrapping dairy from your diet can make lactose intolerance worse because
your body produces digestive enzymes to break down the foods that they are used to digesting
on a regular basis."
In other words, when you stop consuming dairy products, your body will produce less lactase,
which will make the next time you inevitably have ice cream or a glass of milk much harder
on your body than before.
"Impossible!
No citizen can look cool while sitting on the toilet.
This changes everything!"
You may not consume too many glasses of milk, but what about cheese?
Although cheese still has some of the benefits of other dairy products, consuming too much
of it is hard on the body.
The saturated fat in cheese prohibits the absorption of necessary fatty acids, nutritional
therapist Terry Fairclough told Yahoo!
Lifestyle.
He says that problems really begin because the saturated fat in cheese can keep your
body from absorbing essential fatty acids.
He explains:
"Essential fat[ty acids] have many essential jobs.
They are also anti inflammatory.
So eating too much cheese may increase inflammation throughout the body.
Making existing inflammatory conditions such as arthritis worse."
Cheese isn't the sole problem, though.
Dairy products as a whole can cause severe irritation in the cells of your gut.
When that happens, allergens can enter the bloodstream and cause an inflammatory response.
If you have an inflammatory disease, you may find that even a small dash of milk in your
morning cereal is too much.
Just as eating too much cheese increases inflammation, the saturated fat in cheese also increases
cholesterol.
Fairclough explained:
"If you are one of those people who is susceptible to the effects of cholesterol, cheese is going
to make matters worse and may, in fact, put you at risk for a more serious medical condition,
such as a stroke."
In addition to raising your cholesterol and increasing inflammation, the dairy product
we all love can affect our health in another way.
Fairclough added:
"Eating too much cheese with its high saturated fat and salt content can contribute to high
blood pressure."
High blood pressure, or hypertension, has been dubbed a "silent killer" because most
people don't experience any symptoms.
Although you may not feel any different with hypertension, it is dangerous to leave untreated
as it can lead to strokes, heart attacks, blood clots, and other life-threatening complications.
Cutting back on cheese may just help to reduce your risks.
After consuming too much dairy, you may notice pimples cropping up on your face.
As the American Academy of Dermatology reported, several studies have found a possible correlation
between dairy products and acne.
Whitney P. Bowe, board-certified dermatologist and clinical assistant professor of dermatology
at State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine in Brooklyn, New York,
told the AAD:
"While more clinical research is needed to determine dairy's impact on acne severity,
I advise patients to talk with their dermatologist if they believe certain dairy products aggravate
their acne.
Given the benefits of calcium and vitamin D...patients who choose to limit or avoid
dairy products should supplement their diet with appropriate levels of calcium and vitamin
D."
Even if you think the addition of more dairy to your diet is entirely to blame for your
breakout, Bowe recommends keeping a food diary and following up with your dermatologist before
jumping to any conclusions.
According to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, milk and dairy products
are ultimately responsible for a lot of the artery-clogging fats that make their way into
the diet of many Americans.
Cheese in particular is pretty dangerous, and not just because it's so delicious that
we tend to eat a lot of it: there's a ton of fat in cheese.
In fact, most is around 70 percent fat.
However, another study has shown that full-fat dairy products are not exactly at fault for
causing heart disease.
That said, dairy wasn't found to decrease one's risk either.
Instead, replacing dairy fat with vegetable fat reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease
by 10 percent and replacing dairy fat with polyunsaturated fat reduced the risk by some
24 percent.
The takeaway?
Frank Hu, senior author of the study, revealed:
"These results suggest that dairy fat is not an optimal type of fat in our diets.
Although one can enjoy moderate amounts of full-fat dairy such as cheese, a healthy diet
pattern tends to be plant-based and low in saturated fat."
Consuming three glasses of milk a day, the recommended daily intake for young girls and
women, may not lead to heart disease, but too much dairy still seems to negatively impact
one's long-term health.
In 2014, researchers conducted a comprehensive study of more than 60,000 women and discovered
that those who drank three glasses of milk or more had a 44 percent increased risk of
cancer compared to women who consumed less than one glass daily.
Mary Schooling, a professor at the City University of New York School of Public Health, said
people shouldn't necessarily change their diet based on the study because more research
is needed before an association, not just a link, is discovered.
Nevertheless, Karl Michaelsson, the study's lead author and a professor in the department
of surgical sciences at Uppsala University in Sweden, told CBS News,
"The study findings have, for myself, been strong enough to cut down on my milk consumption."
In quite the one-two punch, consuming too much dairy has not just been linked to a higher
risk of cancer, but also a lower breast cancer survival rate.
A 2013 study revealed that a, quote, "intake of high-fat dairy, but not low-fat dairy,
was related to a higher risk of mortality after breast cancer diagnosis."
The women in the study who reported eating one or more servings of high-fat dairy products
each day had a 49 percent higher risk of mortality after being diagnosed with breast cancer compared
to women who either ate fewer servings of high-fat dairy or those who ate exclusively
low-fat dairy products.
According to the study, nonfat dairy products or plant-based milks may be, quote, "a reasonable
approach for limiting risk of adverse outcomes" when it comes to breast cancer.
Milk is the best thing for strong bones, right?
That's what you've likely been told for a long time.
"You're a growing boy.
Growing boy."
However, that may be the furthest thing from the truth.
According to one Swedish study conducted in 2014, drinking too much milk increased, not
decreased, a woman's risk of broken bones.
The risk of bone fractures increased 16 percent in women who consumed three or more glasses
of milk each day while the risk of a broken hip increased a whopping 60 percent.
It is true that calcium strengthens bones, but dairy products don't have to, and shouldn't,
be your only source of calcium.
According to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's The Nutrition Source, dark leafy
green vegetables and legumes are important sources of calcium.
There's also more to strengthening bones than just consuming this mineral.
It's also a matter of regular exercise to help build and maintain bone density and strength,
another reason not to skip your daily yoga routine.
Although it may sound hard to believe, excessive milk consumption has even been linked to death.
According to one comprehensive study, both men and women who drank more than three glasses
of milk each day had an overall higher risk of death.
And by a lot.
Compared to the women who had less than one glass of milk each day, women who reported
consuming more than three glasses of milk daily nearly doubled their risk of death.
Switch out your three glasses of milk for three servings of yogurt, though, and those
risks do not remain.
Science Daily reported that a 2018 study confirmed:
"[With] the exception of milk, dairy products have been found to protect against both total
mortality and mortality from cerebrovascular causes."
Could your dairy products be to blame for your headaches?
According to one study, researchers found what they called a "significant relationship"
between dairy products and headaches.
And it's not just milk.
Foods with tyramine have also been found to trigger migraines, David Buchholz, a neurologist
at Johns Hopkins University, explained to NPR.
Unfortunately for cheese lovers, aged cheeses contain the most of this headache-activating
chemical.
Buchholz explained:
"At the young end, there are cheeses such as cottage or American cheese or cream cheese,
which don't have much tyramine, as opposed to the other end of the spectrum, there's
blue cheese or cheddar, which are loaded with tyramine."
Simply eliminating the cheese from your diet may not be enough to cure your migraines,
though.
There might be more things that trigger a migraine for you, but still, reducing your
consumption of tyramine-rich cheeses could be a great place to start.
Consuming three servings or more of low-fat dairy may lead to a greater risk of developing
Parkinson's disease, one 2017 study revealed.
According to the data, those who consumed too much low-fat dairy were at a 34 percent
greater risk.
Drinking more than one serving of skim or low-fat milk per day was also associated with
a higher risk, 39 percent, of developing Parkinson's disease when compared to drinking less than
one serving per week.
Additionally, both sherbet and frozen yogurt were found to increase a person's risk.
Katherine C. Hughes of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts
told the American Academy of Neurology:
"Our study is the largest analysis of dairy and Parkinson's to date.
The results provide evidence of a modest increased risk of Parkinson's with greater consumption
of low-fat dairy products...Such dairy products, which are widely consumed, could potentially
be a modifiable risk factor for the disease."
Of course, this isn't to say that eating too much dairy, specifically low-fat dairy, causes
Parkinson's disease, just that there seems to be a strong link.
Still, with all the evidence suggesting there can be too much of a good thing when it comes
to dairy, you might just want to cut back.
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