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Originally Posted by Miss Mango
rBGH makes a cow produce more milk in its lifetime than it naturally would, and has been shown to cause cancer in people that drink that milk.
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I have never seen this shown in any scientific study.
To begin with, any study I've ever read implicated elevated levels of calcium as the possible cause of increased rate of prostate cancer in men. Men who drank 2 or more glasses a day were almost twice as likely to develop advanced prostate cancer- note for a moment, that this is related directly to the high levels of calcium intake, and has nothing to do with the dairy product itself, or anything else in it. As for the risk of ovarian cancer, it is linked in some studies (but not all) to high levels of galactose, a sugar released by the digestion of lactose in milk- note again, that this has nothing to do with any additives in the milk, but a natural part of every glass you'd get from any cow, anywhere, regardless of human intervention.
As far as the breast cancer question goes, more studies link it to elevated levels of estrogen in the cows' milk, as pregnant cows secrete more estrogen into their milk than cows who are not. Some studies point the finger at this elevated level of estrogen as speeding up cancer cell growth. Some studies say it's that all the fat in milk causes a woman's body to metabolize excess estrogen.
Some believe the IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) is causing it, because lab studies showed that IGF-1 increases growth rate of cancerous cells- the issue with that is, all the studies I've seen of this correlate the use of bare IGF-1 to cell reproduction... not IGF-1 in milk, and not IGF-1 that's been broken down after digestion in the stomach. Because IGF-1 is a protein, it is broken down out of its normal state
in the stomach before it reaches anywhere in the body that can absorb it (i.e., the small intestines). That means, it is no longer that insulin-like growth factor by the time it gets to where the body would be able to absorb it. Also, even if we were able to absorb it intact, levels of IGF-1 in milk are not significant when evaluated again IGF-1 levels produced and found naturally in humans. IGF-1 is normally found in human plasma at concentrations much higher than those found in cow's milk.
Your best argument for milk causing cancer is a cow's ingestion of pesticides or industrial toxins- but that has nothing to do with what we do to increase a cow's milk production, that is a result of poor product safety practices. That, or the elevated levels of estrogen- which has yet to be conclusively linked.