The Milk Diet -- Is it Your Solution to Losing Weight?

by Michael A. Smith, MD

For sometime now, you've been hearing about the Milk Diet and it's benefit in helping you lose weight. I recently searched on Google for the Milk Diet and could only find vague references to milk as a supplement to help you lose weight.

To date, there is no actual Milk Diet. Instead, supporters of milk as a supplement to losing weight suggest adding milk to any diet. They claim the amount of weight loss will increase simply by adding more whole milk to your diet.

So, does milk help to increase the amount of weight loss? If so, how does it work? First, here are some surprising facts about milk...<ol><li>It's normal to be lactose intolerant. That's right, about 85% of the world's population is lactose intolerant. As an adult, the enzyme that breaks down lactose, the main sugar in milk, no longer functions.

Milk fat, the main benefit of drinking milk, is only necessary for newborns. Once you're old enough to eat solid food, there's no need for milk fat and the lactose enzyme becomes non-functional.

This is why a majority of the world's population is lactose intolerant. You don't need to drink milk as an adult. But why are some people lactose tolerant? Cultures that live at the most Northern regions of each hemisphere don't receive enough sunlight to convert chemicals near the skin surface to vitamin D. To provide themselves with vitamin D, they have retained the function of the lactose enzyme. This accounts for only about 15% of the world's population.

<li>There are many other sources of vitamin D and Calcium. As a matter of fact, milk ranks some where in the middle as a good source of calcium. Here is a quick list of good sources of calcium...

-Bean sprouts
-Spinach, cooked
-Collard greens, cooked


-Mustard greens, cooked


-Almonds


-Chestnuts
-Walnuts
-Raw oysters
-Shrimp
-Salmon with bones
-Garbanzo beans, cooked
-Soybeans, cooked
-Tofu, firm</li></ol> The Milk Diet

The evidence that milk can help you lose weight is inconsistent at best. A few poorly designed studies show a benefit and a few poorly designed studies show no benefit and may even reverse your weight loss efforts.

These studies are poorly designed because they are not rigorously controlled and compared to a group not taking milk. There are a few studies about to finish and report their findings within the next couple of months.

I have decided to wait and not make any conclusions until the proper studies release their results. Until then, follow a more traditional method of losing weight. Restrict calories gradually and moderately. Reducing your caloric intake about 250-550 calories from your baseline per day and exercising will result in about 2-3 pounds of weight loss per week.

For more on the Milk Diet, visit...

www.weight-loss-professional.com/milk-diet.html

To Healthy Living!

Michael A. Smith, MD
Chief Medical Consultant
Diet Basics Website
About the Author

Dr. Smith is the Chief Medical Consultant for the Diet Basics web site. It's a content rich weight loss site dedicated to all dieters. Please visit his site at...

http://www.weight-loss-professional.com/articles