Drinking Milk Linked to Parkinson’s Disease
The new study found a connection between milk contaminants and an elevated risk of contracting Parkinson’s, which affects control of motor neurons in the brain(think Michael J Fox). It is becoming more prevalent every year, especially in western culture.
The study, published in the journal Neurology, supports previous research that found a connection between dairy product consumption and increased risk of Parkinson’s. Robert Abbott, from Shiga University of Medical Science in Japan, and his team were able to extrapolate data from a study done in Hawaii in the 80’s. At the time, 8,000 men were followed from mid-life to death; they all provided information about what they ate and even how much milk they drank. He and his team studied hundreds of brains and recorded the density of neurons, in certain areas of the brain, on men they knew had been affected by Parkinson’s. The milk they consumed during that time may have been contaminated with an insecticide used on pineapples, heptachlor epoxide.
Pineapple leftovers are commonly used to feed cows in Hawaii, which could have been the means for introduction of the insecticide into the milk. While heptachlor epoxide is no longer used as an insecticide, it is persistent in soil and water, hanging around for years after the initial dose.
In the study, men who drank more than two glasses (16 oz) of milk per day showed the least developed nerve networks in the areas of the brain affected by Parkinson’s and also showed residues of the insecticide, heptachlor epoxide.
From the Time Magazine piece by the same title:
Abbott says that he and his team did not have samples of the milk the men drank, so can’t say for sure that the contaminated milk was the source of the pesticides they found in the mens’ brains, but it’s a reasonable explanation. “We don’t have all the data yet, but we are close to finding the smoking gun here,” he says. “It’s not complete, but it’s very suspicious.”
Source: TIME
