Got Parkinsons?

The title is a little pun form the "Got Milk?" campaign.  According to a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, men who consumed the most dairy products had a 60 percent increase in the risk of Parkinsons disease.  Researchers have not identified why processed milk products increase the risk of Parkinsons in men.  Could it be the use of Bovine Growth Hormone used to make cows produce more milk?  Is it the pesticides used in the corn and soy fed to our industrially farmed cows?  (What ever happened to grazing?)  Could it be the antibiotics the cows are injected with the fight the infections that occur when you make a cow eat food that it's body was not designed for?  According to the Weston A Price Foundation milk contains traces of 80 antibiotics - umm antibiotic resistance anyone???  Could it be the fact that once milk is pasteurized its molecular structure is altered, becoming less of a real living food and more like a food product, losing a significant amount of its nutritional value.    

The study did not find a correlation between processed dairy consumption and increased risk of Parkinsons in women.  My mom consumed a moderate amount of dairy growing up, nothing out of the ordinary.  I don't know why the Y chromosome makes a person more vulnerable to increasing their risk of Parkinsons through milk consumption.  The main correlations for suspected causes of Parkinsons have been head injuries and pesticides.  Reviewing the list above, perhaps it is the pesticides used in the feed for the dairy cows that causes the increased risk from dairy consumption.

If you believe in the gut-brain connection like I do, perhaps its the lack of enzymes in pasteurized milk that make it difficult for your body to digest, which can lead to inflammation and a leaky gut.  Leaky gut can lead to a whole host of neurological ailments and perhaps Parkinsons is one of them, but I digress.  I am just glad to see yet another study supporting my belief in the gut-brain connection.  For sources of raw milk in your community go to http://www.realmilk.com/where1.html.