A Homesteading Golden Calf: A2 Milk
A Homesteading Golden Calf: A2 Milk
The misty fog shrouding the devil in the milk
You won’t wander in the homesteading/regenerative agriculture/real food/health nut circles long before you start hearing a pattern to the buzz words trending on repeat. In these days when everyone is an “expert” tidbits of information are gathered and regurgitated ad nauseam. Most of us walk away with a facade of knowledge, but with nothing to substantiate the claims. When we hear a thing repeated too often, we tend to start believing it without really understanding where the notion came from… or if there is any validity to the claim. Our trusted “friend” said it, so it must be true, right?
One idea that has impressed me over the past few years is not just how very little we know, but how very little we can prove is true. I mean how many of us were experts on one side of the mask debate or the other? (Most.) But how many of us had verified the evidence we were spouting? (None.) Each side had data to unequivocally PROVE they were right.
One such polarizing debate is the milk health debate.
Should we drink skim, whole, pasteurized, UHT pasteurized, or raw? Homogenized or non-homogenized? Grass-fed only or is a grain ration ok? Is goat or sheep or camel’s or yak’s milk better than cow’s? I mean, do you even know what size fat globules your digestion system can handle? But is your cow a Jersey?
In the past ten years or so, a certain buzzword in the dairy debacle has risen like Guernsey cream to prominence. This marketing gimmick prefaces all the others on the list of terms to describe the ultimate dairy product. It is the cure-all solution to all of your health and dairy digestive woes…
And that word, letter and number actually, is A2.
It is the fruit of a marketing campaign that would make Henry Ford beam with pride.
For this discussion, I’m going to assume you are familiar with A2 milk. I’m not going to talk down to you today with fancy charts, a facade of technicalities, or any other visual cues to bolster my street cred and authority on the topic. The following is a review of the book that started all the hype on this hot-button topic and my thoughts and opinions jotted down while reading the book. Ultimately, I intend to encourage everyone to think critically when they come across information, whether it was able to be published in a study, in a book, or by our favorite influencer.
If the A2 milk term is new to you, in the nuttiest of shells, milk has proteins called casein and whey. Visibly demonstrated in cheesemaking, when curds (casein) coagulate, the whey is left behind as a byproduct. One type of casein protein is beta-casein, comprising 30% of the protein, and the two main types of beta-casein, A1 and A2 come in pairs. You can have A1/A1, A1/A2, or A2/A2. Which beta-casein proteins a cow produces is determined by genetics, with each parent passing on one variant. Over time a herd or population of cattle can be shifted to favor one combination or the other.
The theory, spread far and wide these days as incontrovertible fact, is that A2/A2 beta-casein milk was the original form in cattle. A mutation happened somewhere along the way and the mutated A1/A1 milk is, therefore, of inferior quality and causes a myriad of health issues. Finding a source of A2/A2 milk is said to improve both overall health as well as specific health issues one might be facing.
It almost sounds too good to be true!
In much of the conversation around A2 milk, very few people make sure to distinguish that digestibility issues can also stem from lactose intolerance (which raw milk simply may resolve because it contains the digestive enzyme lactase needed to break down the lactose sugars) or that different species and frankly different breeds have varying fat globule size, which can lead to digestion issues. An honest conversation about dairy digestibility must factor these issues in!
Potential Causes of Dairy-Induced Inflammation
A1 beta-casein
Pasteurized A1 beta-casein milk (activating the BCM7 peptide)
High-PUFA grain-based feedlot management
Genetically modified, herbicide-saturated grain feed and supplementation
High-PUFA infant formula made with heated, BCM7-activated dairy products (Do they cause a leaky gut?)
Lactose Intolerance (Sugar; Pasteurized milk without lactase digestive enzyme)
Fat globule size
Whey allergy
Homogenization
Glyphosate contamination
So you can see, simply sourcing A2 milk or buying an A2 milk-producing cow can never be the silver bullet it is advertised to be.
With the exception of Guernsey cows, an honest conversation also has no claim to breeds of the Western world or can make sweeping generalizations about the standard dairy market, such as all Holsteins are A1 milk producers or all conventional store milk in America is A1 milk.
In the sampling of the University of Minnesota dairy herd1, the A2 results were:
Holsteins - 56% A2/A2
Jersey-sired - 47% A2/A2
Normande-sired - 50% A2/A2
While some breeds have more A2 ratio (Guernsey, Brown Swiss, Jersey by a smidge), Holsteins are still producing about 50% A2 milk.
This means that we can expect half of supermarket milk to be A2! No one knows how much because it’s simply not feasible to mass-test large herds. But mass testing was never the goal. It was to make assumptions and shift the herds over time through marketing and IT WORKED and in the end, we’re the suckers pushing it for the corporations with no compensation.
For the record, I am not here to argue this issue one way or the other.
After watching the family cow market and crunch mama circles go wild over the term, I recognized that if I were to knowingly market my heifers or our milk as A2, I wanted to understand the science behind it, lest I make false assurances or claims. Honesty is a virtue I take most seriously and, while I am sure to breed my cows to A2 bulls because that is what the market demands, I do not make any claims.
I have no skin in the game one way or the other. My sole interest is in an honest, transparent, and objective dialogue… and my conclusion is that’s scarcer than a hen’s teeth. Folks with an opinion seem to be immediately combative if you ask questions.
We must do better than that. Or we lay our credibility down on the altar of a fad.
The Devil in the Milk
Having raised family cows for 15 years now, I knew the source of all the information swirling around online about A2 milk originates from a book called The Devil in the Milk by Keith Woodford, published in 2007. The copy I read has a postscript in 2010. At a glance, it seems that the last science-related A2 milk update on his website was published in 2020. Rather than untangling the tightly keyword-woven web online to understand A2 milk, I went straight to the source to get the “facts.”
I turned the first page with an open mind. While the puzzle pieces scattered throughout the internet didn’t fit, I truly expected the book would put them all together in a way that made sense and I would be able to understand. I couldn’t have imagined the endless conjecture I would meet with. Page after page is loaded with suppositions posited as fact, and spoken with such confidence. Admittedly, Covid has shaken my trust in scientific institutions, but if the case laid out for the benefits of A2 milk in this book is how scientific conclusions are arrived at, it has done nothing to rebuild my faith.
Impressions in Brief
I don’t want you to take my word for it so I have heavily quoted the book in this review. By the time I was done, the book was fat with scribbled post-it notes that I’m sharing below. When we’re through, perhaps you’ll want to read the book to make your own judgement, but I hope that, at the very least, you will realize we simply can’t repeat the absolute health claims about A2 milk with a clean conscious.
This is a fatty acid of a book review and I didn’t trim down much of my notes. Out of respect for your time, I’m going to give you my key takeaways in brief before citing examples and getting in the weeds of technicality.
1.) The origins of A2 milk can only ever be a theory. We do not know the beta-casein profile of various cattle species around the world 10,000 years ago. We do not know when the “mutation” happened if it happened. There is every reason to believe, that just like the diversity among breeds of other animals, there is also a variation in cattle and, just perhaps, it is necessary and good to have this variation, but we simply aren’t wise enough to understand it.
We can only say for certain what the beta-casein profile in some milk was when started testing in the 1990s (by a Cambridge scientist who, surely objectively, created and patented the testing.)
2.) The actual “devil” in the milk is NOT the A1 beta-casein protein. The “devil” is a peptide in A1 milk called beta-casomorphine 7 (BCM7). During digestion, BCM7 can make its way out of the gut and into the bloodstream where it is thought to cause health issues. (The author admits that BCM7 “resists being studied.”) There are many other proteins and peptides that have never been studied.
Some studies point out there is a “lack of concrete scientific evidence for A1/BCM7 ill effects on human health… no need to move to a2 only.”2
3.) There is ZERO real evidence presented to support A2 milk claims. It is primarily epidemiological (data comparison) studies. This book makes emphatic declarations while at the same time being riddled with hypothetical language. The actual studies done are rife with issues (animals genetically predisposed to the conditions being tested for; BCM7 being injected into the bloodstream where it would naturally never be without underlying health issues; etc.), and subsequent justifications to explain them away for the naysayers.
4.) There were ZERO studies in this book differentiating between raw and pasteurized milk. So, if the data is supposed to be true, at best, we can claim it is prudent to drink A2 milk if we are choosing to drink pasteurized milk.
5.) Likewise, there was no data mentioned on formula-fed infants and their susceptibility to later digestive and health issues. I would love to see that tracked alongside these numbers. But we never will because the biggest antagonist to the success of the A2 Corporation is a company called Fonterra which, to this day, has one of the biggest global market shares in infant formula. There were certainly enough nuggets in this book to lead one to believe industrial slop infant formula could be an underlying factor.
6.) The million-dollar question the book left me with is, “How does BCM7 defy the safeguards of our digestive systems and make it into the bloodstream?” This means there is an underlying health factor making us sick and susceptible to its effects after exposure. If we are simply drinking A2 milk to avoid the “devil,” we fail to get to our root health issues. How is this different than taking statins for our cholesterol without making any lifestyle changes to improve our health?
7.) The health claims against A1 milk are SO much broader than simply digestibility. If folks were honestly attempting to credit A2 milk with all that is claimed, it would be taken far less seriously because we would look like quacks. Among the diseases attributed to or worsened by A1 milk consumption according to the book include:
Heart disease (“opioid-related mechanism perhaps linked to immune function and the oxidant properties working like a double-edged sword”)
Type 1 diabetes
SIDS (Surely someone would have noticed by now it’s all formula-fed babies dying of SIDS since breastmilk doesn’t have A1 beta-casein!)
Multiple Sclerosis
Schizophrenia
Autism
Allergies/Asthma/Histamine Issues
Eczema
Celiac
Chron’s
Ulcerative colitis
Alzheimer’s
Parkinson’s
Is everyone experiencing digestibility issues from drinking A1 milk with BCM7 leaking into their bloodstream and also dealing with these other major health issues? The logical conclusion is that if you are A1 sensitive, you would be or can expect to.
8.) Let’s be honest, as of 2021, all epidemiological studies on the connection between heart disease and A1 milk consumption are officially dead. After dosing an entire world population with a substance that clearly causes heart disease, we can no longer look to other factors as a cause.
8.) If you believe that Pfizer is deeply concerned with your health and well-being, then you will, likewise, have no problem believing that the corporations funding the studies on A2 milk are also doing so out of the goodness of their hearts for the betterment of global health. The market value of the A2 corporation within a year of their patent being $65 million New Zealand dollars has nothing to do with it.
The Devil’s in the Details
Before we tackle the nitty-gritty, we must see that the language throughout the book is hypothetical and highly speculative.
The following are all words used again and again in the book while at the same time positing the A2 theory as fact:
Supposedly
Scientists think
Evident
Could
Apparently
Also undeniable… mechanism remained a mystery
A2 hypothesis
In theory it might seem
High confidence
Most likely
In all likelihood
Anecdotal evidence
It appears
Seems to make sense
Necessarily
Suggests
Indications
Correlations
it is possible but at this stage unproven
Perhaps it was due to
May confirm hypothesis
Circumstantial evidenced
We cannot say with absolute certainty (autism)
So here we have yet another area of research that needs to be followed up (Regarding schizophrenia)
In the absence of proof from double-blinded diet trials it is inevitable that there should be a focus on individual case studies and anecdotal reports.
We do not have absolute proof of causation because epidemiology by itself can never provide absolute proof.
One point I agree with is that epidemiology by itself can never provide final, absolute proof.
It is clear that there is… much that we don’t know about BCM7
Overall picture is starting to appear
How can we make emphatic assertions when the definitive resource compiling all available information on the topic cannot do the same?
As I mentioned earlier, even the theory of a genetic mutation is, at best speculative. It is supposed that all cattle were A2/A2 producers throughout history and 5,000-10,000 years ago a mutation occurred to introduce A1 beta-casein into the population.
The author questions why European farms began to unwittingly select A1 cattle in their breeding programs until the breeds are predominantly A1 milk producers (which in itself is not true- some breeds are now found to be roughly 50% or less of their population producing A1 milk). A1 milk otherwise has no discernible advantage. Perhaps, he suggests, it’s because BCM7 is a beta-casoMORPHINE, and the slight opioid effect it causes led to calmer calves. However, all calves are pretty calm in the days following the birth, especially during the few hours when their gut is open and the bloodstream is affected by permeability and BCM7 peptides.
In reviewing a connection between autism and BCM7, he admits one of the challenges is that BCM7 is not found in the bloodstream forever so can we reasonably rule that out? Frankly, the Calm Calf supposition makes little sense because if there was a discernible difference in the calves drinking milk from their A1 mothers, wouldn’t the farmers notice withdrawal issues and less docile calves at weaning time? Weaning is already one of the most frustrating times of a dairyman’s year.
But are we also to believe that in that window of 5,000+ years since farmers started selecting cows who happened to produce A1 milk their families and customers never noticed this myriad of serious health effects? Even if we narrow it down to simply the digestive issues, surely dairy couldn’t have become such a staple in the human diet if it was giving everyone constipation and stomach cramps? Pushing this point leads to the abhorrent “people milk is for people, cow’s milk is for cows” cope.
Or is it more reasonable to believe that something has happened to our food supply or bodies since the Industrial Era dawned to make us susceptible to illness?
Timeline of A2 Milk Theory & Corporate Shenanigans
A2 Corporation was founded by Corran McLachlan, the scientist who discovered the gene and patented the testing process, and Howard Paterson, an entrepreneur, the “biggest agricultural venture capitalist”, and “world’s biggest dairy farmer” in February 2000. Paterson also owned three other biotech companies, Botry Zen, Pharma Zen, and Blis. I don’t know about you but I sure love a good marriage between food and biotech companies.
It is interesting to note that, “By early 2000 two important patent applications had been filed.”
1.) Child Health Research Foundation & NZ Dairy Board (method of testing milk for beta casein) who claimed A1 caused diabetes
2.) Corran McLachlan (genetic testing of cows for A1 allele) who claimed A1 caused heart disease
The filing of the patent and founding of the corporation happened simultaneously so it is pretty clear the objective here was financially motivated. Sure enough, the market value within one year was $65 million NZ dollars.
A few years prior to this, Corran McLachalan, A2 patent holder, “was running a company researching the production of cholesterol-free dairy and meat products.” He “had a patent on the production of cholesterol-free butter,” and “aspects of [his] research were first brought into the public arena with his 1996 patent application for genetic selection of cows to eliminate A1 beta-casein in milk” and a patent to genetically engineer beta-casein out of infant formula to prevent diabetes. However, it wasn’t until 1999 that beta-casein consumption was studied as a risk factor for Type 1 diabetes.3 Seems out of order, doesn’t it?
“In those early days the objectives of A2 Corporation were threefold. First, it had to ensure protection of its intellectual property through patents and trade marks. This intellectual property underpinned the ability to earn royalties from the genetic testing of cows and the sale of A2 milk. Second, it needed to undertake or fund further research that would clarify the role of A1 beta-casein and BCM7 in relation to a number of diseases. And third, it needed to commercialize the marketing of A2 milk through franchise or similar agreements with milk processors and marketers.”
The biggest antagonist to their success appears to be a company called Fonterra who, even now, has one of the biggest global marketshare in infant formula. So we can hardly view their objections as unbiased either.
Both sides of this battle have skin in the game.
There isn’t any motivation to do further studies because a successful marketing campaign to convince people to drink A2 turns a profit whereas further research costs money at the risk of no financial gains. And the fact that you and I are having this discussion proves how very successful that marketing campaign was!
From the start, the “science” behind A2 milk was clearly funded, fueled, and rotted by financial ambitions and corporate shenanigans. If we still trust these entities to be subjective, then we have learned nothing in the past four years.
The Devil in Disguise: BCM7
Of course, when discussing this issue, we must always remember that the A1 beta-casein protein is not the culprit “devil.” It is the BCM7… as in Beta-CasoMORPHINE (think opioids) peptide that is the offender.
From the Raw Milk Institute:
The Effects of Pasteurization and BCM7 Protein Levels in Raw Milk
This peer-reviewed and published 2007 study performed by Polish researchers found that raw A1 and A2 milk was the same when RAW with trace differences of the BCM7. However, when that same raw milk was processed with high heat, the processed A1 milk expressed high levels of BCM7 casomorphine.
This study strongly suggests that it is not the raw milk from A1 or A2 cows that is the problem because their milk is virtually the same when raw, it is the processing of the milk that is the problem. When A1 milk is heated the BCM 7 levels rise and potential issues become significant.
This also strongly suggests that the entire A1-A2 issue became a health matter in the last 80 years and has not been a health issue for thousands of years when raw milk was consumed all over the world with excellent health benefits.
In the studies cited in the book, they are injecting BCM7 directly into the bloodstream or using protein products without the whole product opioid antagonists. Obviously, these are two different body systems being compared! Why would we expect the digestive system to handle BCM7 the same as the circulatory system? To make blanket statements that BCM7 in A1 milk is detrimental for the entire human population presupposes that BCM7 is coming out of the gut into the bloodstream.
And if it does get through the gut wall, the concern is it can then pass the blood/brain barrier. Again and again, the author mentions that in folks with leaky gut, “intestinal permeability of stomach and intestines,” and possibly in people with stomach ulcers or celiac disease which may allow for permeability, BCM7 and other peptides pass very easily into the bloodstream.
“In healthy adults it should be difficult for BCM7 to get through the gut wall and into the bloodstream, because the molecule is too large.” (emphasis mine)
Nowhere in the book is glyphosate exposure mentioned, which is one theory to explain why the modern gut is buckshot and fueling many diseases.4 And, of course, glyphosate exposure can certainly happen in milk when we are downstream in a contaminated food chain.
Is it the underlying root cause that allows BCM7 through?
“Although the opioids may not be the fundamental problem, they do irreversible damage in susceptible people.” (emphasis mine)
“There are also opioid antagonists in milk that can to a large extent negate the effect of the weaker opioids.”
In herbalism, there is a school of thought that favors the use of the whole plant because of the complementary effects. Mightn’t the same view be taken here? In isolation (and especially injected into the bloodstream), BCM7 may very well be detrimental to the human body, but that doesn’t reasonably lead to a conclusion that milk as a whole, pure product is therefore also detrimental!
BCM7 “Resists Being Studied”
“One of the issues in the past has been that these tests have been difficult to conduct, and a number of laboratories have experienced problems with them. This may be because BCM7 is hydrophobic (water-repellent) and extremely sticky to surfaces like plastic or glass. In other words, if the urine or blood being tested is moving from one flask to another it is very easy to leave the milk device behind.”
“In a diabetic the time at which the BCM7 was sneaking into the bloodstream may have been long before the first signs of the disease appeared. In fact, it may have completely passed, leaving no trace, by the time the disease becomes apparent. Indeed, a long delay between time of exposure to the trigger and disease development is common with auto-immune diseases. Therefore the test would need to focus on BCM7 antibodies rather than on just BCM7 itself…. Measuring antibodies to molecules as small as BCM7 would not be easy.”
BUT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER…
“These scientists have been able to show that many autistic children have high levels of BCM7 and other casomorphins derived from BCM7 in their blood and urine.”
Since it doesn’t last long, are they testing for BCM7 at the time of the symptom onset and diagnosis? All that is shown there is BCM7 is in the body at the time of study.
At the end of the day, the current that weaves throughout the book is that we don’t know. And if we don’t know, the author ought not to be making absolute statements and advocating for sweeping changes based on theory.
And neither should we.
If you take one thing away from all of this, let it be his own words:
“Complex diseases are multi-factorial and hence there are multiple risk factors. So it is highly unlikely that A1 beta-casein is going to prove the total answer.”
The “Studies”
One of my favorite quotes from this book is “Hill would have known that in cattle there are essentially two major types of beta-casein protein, known as A1 and A2. There are also some other minor variants within the A1 and A2 families, but at this stage of the story they can be ignored.” (emphasis mine)
“But at this stage of the story they can be ignored” encapsulates the alternative theories for the summary of information presented so succinctly.
The vast majority of the “studies” cited in the book are epidemiological (plotting correlative data points) in nature.
To give you an example of how that is summarized:
“The paper presented statistical data showing a very strong relationship across countries between the level of A1 beta-casein consumption and heart disease, whereas there was no such relationship between A2 beta-casein and heart disease. It also presented data showing a similarly strong link with Type 1 diabetes… people of Kenya are ‘essentially free’ of heart disease despite having very high [A2] milk consumption… The highest level of heart disease at the time of this analysis was in Finland, where there is a very high intake of A1 beta-casein.”
And also:
“A key point about between-country epidemiology is that, for a factor such as A1 beta-casein, each country is essentially a “blinded” participant. Neither the countries nor the individuals within those countries made a conscious decision as to whether they would drink milk for which the beta-casein was predominantly A1 or predominately A2. They weren’t offered a choice, or even aware there was a choice: it was a matter of chance, depending on the predominant breeds of cattle in each country. By restricting the analysis to countries that had similar wealth and healthcare systems, it provides a very powerful comparison of like with like.”
And to highlight the contradiction in absolutism:
“People who live in countries where a lot of A1 beta-casein is consumed are also subjected to some other factor that not only causes heart disease but also in some way affects intake of A1 beta-casein, whereas people in countries consuming low amounts of A1 beta-casein are not exposed to that other factor, whatever it might be.” (emphasis mine)
“Either consciously or subconsciously they [trial participants] therefore take more care over the food they eat. Hence, regardless of which trial diet they were on [A1 or A2 milk], there was a likelihood that the participants’ cholesterol levels would drop.”
Or there is this cog thrown in the wheel:
“Iceland had the highest milk intake but quite moderate levels of Type 1 diabetes… researchers were unable to find any statistical relationship consistent with any hypotheses… So although this study did nothing to further prove the A1 relationship with Type 1 diabetes, it did seem to disprove a number of alternative possibilities.” (emphasis mine)
How many other countless processed foods in the modern diet were plotted on the same charts? Are there any other suspects? Are there any other foods in combination with the milk causing? What other differences in these group’s diets were analyzed? Alcohol, fish, meat, and vegetables were investigated… what about Oreos, Marie Calendars microwave meals, Big Macs, glyphosate, and childhood vaccination rates? Are there genetic factors at play that allow BCM7 to enter the bloodstream?
“Undertaking human trials to investigate such issues is very difficult. The subjects of the trial would need to be identified as babies then put on either A1 or A2 formula milk once breastfeeding ceased. The trials would probably need to go on for many years, and the children prevented from eating any “ordinary” dairy products. The parents of each child would need to give permission and be actively involved, but could not be permitted to know whether their beautiful and initially healthy baby was getting A1 or A2 formula. This is called a ‘blind trial’ and it is a very important element of experimental design. Indeed to have a high level of scientific validity the trial should be ‘double blind,’ where none of the scientists dealing with the babies, nor their parents, nor the investigators doing the blood analyses, would know which baby was receiving which treatment.” (emphasis mine)
THIS HAS NEVER BEEN DONE.
Formula has casein as a protein source. Moreover, if the baby is given a formula, regardless of beta-casein content, a formula will contain equally unstudied hydrogenated seed oils to improve the fatty acid content, with all of the health implications they may cause.
“BCM7 could not be found directly in milk or infant formula” (because it doesn’t show up till digested.) “Once the milk and infant formula were digested in the laboratory, using enzymes and conditions as close as possible to those in the human digestive system, then BCM7 was indeed released from all commercial samples. It was also released from specially selected A1 samples but not from A2.”
Bear in mind, as we touched on earlier, BCM7 is only activated in A1 milk after pasteurization AND that general populations of cattle at worst have a 50% A1 profile rate.
Much to the author’s chagrin, the Swinburn Report (2004) determined there is “insufficient evidence to warrant warnings being place on A1 milk.”
It concluded:
“The A1/A2 hypothesis is both intriguing and potentially very important for public health if it is proved correct. It should be taken seriously and further research is needed. In addition, the appropriate government agencies have a responsibility to communicate the current state of evidence to the public, including the uncertainty about the evidence. Further public health actions, such as changing dietary advice or requiring labeling of milk products, are not considered to be warranted at this stage. Monitoring is also required to ensure that any claims made for A2 milk fall within the regulations for food claims.
Changing the dairy herds to more A2 producing cows is an option… may significantly improve public health, if the A1/A2 hypothesis is proved correct, and it is highly unlikely to do harm.
As a matter of individual choice, people may wish to reduce or remove A1 beta-casein from their diet as a precautionary measure. This may be particularly relevant for those individuals who have or are at risk of the diseases mentioned (Type 1 diabetes, coronary heart disease, autism, and schizophrenia). However, they should do so knowing that there is substantial uncertainty about the benefits of such an approach.” (emphasis mine)
The author of the book seemed to be torn up about the exclusion of this summary from the report but it hardly does anything to bolster the claims about the efficacy of A2 milk in improving health outcomes. One critique is that he only researched the issue as it pertained to humans and failed to research the underlying science of BCM7 casomorphin (only A1, A2, and casein).
Likewise in January 2009, the European Food Safety (EFSA) stated:
“Based on the present review of available scientific literature, a cause-effect relationship between the oral intake of BCM7 or related peptides and etiology or course of any suggested non-communicable diseases cannot be established.” (emphasis mine)
A Few Notes of Interest on Specific Diseases
You may be surprised to learn that the bulk of the evidence presented in the book focuses not on allergies and digestibility but on a relationship between heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, and A1 milk. When taken altogether, the picture is as clear as the puddles around my barn on a rainy day. Heart disease and Type 1 diabetes have increased in the early 20th century but though milk consumption and heart disease are in decline, obesity and Type 1 diabetes continue to rise.
HEART DISEASE
To summarize the evidence that A1 milk is the cause of heart disease, it was presented as charted population data that shows that countries with high heart disease also have high type 1 diabetes and a higher population of A1 cows in the herds. As mentioned earlier, this is based on a sampling of herds because most dairy farmers have no financial incentive to test their herds. And, once again, the breeds that are considered A1 breeds still have a significant population that are A2 producers. As I read the data and rationality behind this part of the theory, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between it and the, now debunked, Ancel Keys cholesterol studies.
“Heart disease increased greatly during the first half of the 20th century.”
How long would the list of lifestyle changes that occurred in this time be? The industrial and technological revolutions have led to far less physical activity/labor, far more industrial toxicity, the food supply is universally poisoned and comprised of highly processed food-like products, we have a decreased diversity of diet, and the easy accessibility of travel starves the microbiome of local bacteria, and on and on.
But A1 milk, which has by their theory been around for 5,000-10,000 years, is suddenly causing this increase in heart disease?
The reality is, if all we can rely upon are epidemiological studies, we will never know more than we do now. Epidemiological studies on heart disease are dead. Vaccine-induced heart disease is skyrocketing, statins, aspirin, and ACE inhibitors are also muddying the statistics. The author even admits this fragility of epidemiological studies when making the case for A1 causing heart disease. Meanwhile, as heart disease rises, vegan/vegetarian/climate crisis messaging is working to reduce overall milk consumption over time.
DIABETES
“We can be very confident that, unless there is a third factor that affects both diabetes incidence and the intake of A1 beta-casein, we do have a genuine relationship.”
“Type 1 diabetes has been increasing steadily over recent decades despite there being a small decrease in the intake of A1 beta-casein. So something else is also a risk factor, perhaps interacting with the BCM7 from A1 beta-casein.”
Could that third factor be glyphosate?5
ALLERGIES
After distinguishing between allergies and intolerances, anecdotal evidence of milk tolerance is discussed. However, improved digestibility does not mean that allergies were resolved (if that was the cause in the first place). “But this is nothing more than a hypothesis that is logical but totally untested in scientific trials.”
Another allergy-related tidbit that caught my eye was this:
“Whereas A1 milk has the amino acid histidine at position 67, the A2 milk contains proline at the same position.”
I don’t fully understand the implications here but in my notes on histamine intolerance (which I believe my husband has), it states that histidine is a precursor to histamine. People experiencing allergies and autoimmune issues have an overproduction of histamine which reduces histidine reservoirs. A protein called metallothionein binds to metals and removes them and can only be made with enough histidine, showing us that histidine isn’t a bad thing. In fact, oral l-histidine has been associated with improvement in clinical signs and symptoms of atopic dermatitis.6
DIGESTABILITY
To clarify, I am certainly never going to discount anyone’s experience with A2 milk improving their ability to digest milk. Those stories are music to my ears! I love milk and want everyone to share with me the joys of the home dairy.
BUT…. We must always bear in mind that stories of improved digestibility are purely anecdotal. As I pointed out above there are a myriad of potential causes. Discovering the root of our inability to drink milk isn’t as simple as buying a cow that had 25 tail hairs ripped out at the root and sent to California for testing.
So even in this, the authoritative resource on the benefits of A2 milk, and improved digestibility has not been proven, as though they have no understanding of the placebo effect.
Now, why do they suppose A2 milk is more easily digested?
“The BCM7 that is released in the gut can affect the digestive system without necessarily being absorbed in the bloodstream. It is well known that casein is sometimes effective in treating diarrhea, and indeed can lead to constipation. It is also well known that opioids, including BCM7, can reduce the rate of passage through the gut.”
In other words, the best explanation is that the side effect of opioid BCM7 is constipation. Kind of an important point if you think A1 milk is causing your diarrhea…
“It is also possible, but at this stage unproven, that the slower passage of A1 milk through the digestive system (due to release of BCM7), increases problems of lactose intolerance… the slower the passage, the more [lactose] fermentation will occur.”
However, it fails to mention that this is only a problem in pasteurized milk products because raw milk contains lactase, a digestive enzyme that breaks down lactose.
Another major component in digestibility in milk is the size and natural homogenization of fat globules. So when discussing the anecdotal ability to drink A2 goat’s milk vs A1 cow’s milk, there is another factor not being considered. (There are more… see above.)
Generally, his focus is on auto-immune caused by leaky gut allowing the permeability of the stomach/intestines as a gateway for BCM7. Therefore, those anecdotally claiming improvement when drinking A2 milk should see improvement after healing their gut, consider a placebo effect, or that, if A2 milk is indeed the underlying cause of digestion issues, there is some completely as yet undiscovered mysterious reason for the intolerance.
In the conclusion of the postscript, he is irritated by those of us who point out that “observational evidence, which some people dismissingly call ‘anecdotal’” is…. well… anecdotal.
“It is difficult to be precise with numbers, but the evidence I see points to well over half the people who have previously been unable to tolerate ‘ordinary’ milk, because of conditions such as nausea, bloating, and eczema, now finding that they are able to digest A2 milk.”
That’s hardly even convincing for anecdotal evidence.
Pasteurization: Opening the Gates of Hell
While the book contained a small section on the changes in pasteurization and processing of milk over the years, there was no discussion about the studies testing raw A1 milk against pasteurized A1 milk. Is the milk whole… and I mean truly complete, unaltered components? Has it been homogenized?
"Prior to 1950 the major method of pasteurization was the Holder method (the milk was heated to 63C for about 30 minutes.) Subsequently this method fell out of favor largely because of the distinctive ‘cooked’ flavor it gave to the milk. In the 1960s there was a move to short-time, high temperature method, (about 90C for 15 seconds) and by 1980 these had become predominant. This change was soon followed by a decline in heart-disease levels that cannot be satisfactorily explained in terms of the classic risk factors of heart disease.”
Of course, this can also easily be explained by advances in science and technology that prevent heart disease death, not pasteurization methods.
“From 1980 through 2000, the age-adjusted death rate for coronary heart disease fell… Approximately 47% of this decrease was attributed to treatments…” 7
And while heart disease has been in decline since the 50s the same can’t be said for Type 1 diabetes which started increasing in prevalence around the same time. How can A1 milk be the cause of both but since changing pasteurization methods, the rates of one has improved and the other grown worse? All the while overall milk consumption has been declining since the 1950s.
Likewise, overall population milk consumption is in decline (though probably not formula consumption) but autism populations are exploding.
“It is going to be a long time before there are any results from GFCF (gluten-free, casein-free) diets that classically trained scientists who demand controls and double-blinding might regard as proof [of a connection with autism.]” It’s been almost 15 years…. progress?
“Glycation is the process whereby glucose and other sugars react with protein to form sugar-modified proteins called advanced glycation end (AGE) products. There is a huge emerging medical literature showing these are closely linked to a wide range of degenerative diseases. Glycated BCM7 is just one of these AGE products. Levels of glycated BCM7 can be increased by a number of modern food processes including ultra-high temperature treatment of milk, the use of ascorbic acid in canned products that have been heated as part of the preservation process, and a generally greater level of sugar drinks consumed by children.” (emphasis mine)
“There is no obvious reason why the B variant should act differently to A1, it would be wrong to totally exclude this possibility. Laugesen and Elliott state that B beta-casein does have a different solubility and may be digested differently by the intestinal mucosa. In other words, the difference in the amino acid at position 122 that distinguishes A1 beta-casein from B beta-casein may cause the protein to fold differently and hence expose different parts to the molecule to digestive enzymes. But it may also simply be that the milk is pasteurized and processed differently in one country that happens to have higher levels of B beta-casein.” (empahsis mine)
Finally, let’s recall the definitive conclusion of the study cited by The Raw Milk Institute which they summarized by stating: “This study strongly suggests that it is not the raw milk from A1 or A2 cows that is the problem because their milk is virtually the same when raw, it is the processing of the milk that is the problem. When A1 milk is heated the BCM 7 levels rise and potential issues become significant.” 8
Choose You This Day - An Act of Faith
“Readers now need to make up their own minds as to whether the overall story is convincing.” - Keith Woodward, The Devil in the Milk
Whether we have experienced an improvement in our wellness after drinking A2 milk or not, ultimately, the best we can do is choose to believe that A1 milk contains the devil that was the source of our evils. While one day it may turn out to be true, at this point, there is no unquestionable data to emphatically say that A1 milk, or even the BCM7 peptide, is the root cause of our illnesses.
The current evidence is controversial at best and faulty at worst. We need more research before we can draw absolute conclusions.
The sad reality is that we have no lobbyists on the side of health pushing to fund real studies. So we need to use common sense and good judgment in combination with wise stewardship principles to make choices about our food.
Unfortunately, we were, and continue to be, rapidly bombarded with a myriad of environmental and dietary changes that our bodies can’t handle, the sheer volume and rapidity of which makes it nearly impossible to isolate and eliminate them as root causes. And because we are so unhealthy and miserable in this digital age, we are prime targets for viral marketing campaigns. We must be vigilant to guard against the propaganda that is as a roaring lion, walking about, seeking whom it may devour and learn to discern which ideas are reasonable and which are fallacious.
Our health and the longevity and vitality of generations to come, in our children and grandchildren, are at stake.
In the shorter term, we have a responsibility to our fellow man not to propagate corporate talking points and marketing campaigns as fact. We have a responsibility to the livestock that feed us, and especially those directly under our care not to fall prey to ideas that will affect our management choices. A righteous man regards the life of his beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. As this fad blows through the health-conscious and homesteading worlds, cows are being shuffled from farm to farm, with complete disregard for the effect on them or the next buyer. As beasts of routine, it is hard on them to be our guinea pig gal only for us to discover that A2 milk wasn’t the silver bullet of our health journey. And on to the next sucker she goes. We can be smarter and do better.
https://extension.umn.edu/dairy-milking-cows/a2-milk-and-a2-genetics
https://animalnutrition.imedpub.com/human-health-and-milk-proteins-the-a1a2-milk-hypothesis.php?aid=38860
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10475156/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5634381/
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa053935
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c930aceaf4683e69e2cd577/t/5c96c3254785d3d5df39e94f/1553384235377/2007.Cieslinka-BCM7-in-raw-and-hydrolysed-milk-beta-casein-genotypes.pdf
Thank you for this excellent and thorough review Quinn! I appreciate the time you put into sharing this information.