This book proposes and supports the claim that drinking milk, by adults, promotes the process of atherosclerosis in coronary arteries and thus leads to heart disease, heart attacks and death. Evidence for this theory includes the higher rate of coronary mortality in countries where milk drinking is high (such as U.S.A., Finland, England and New Zealand) compared to countries where very little milk is consumed (including Japan, France, Greece and Spain). Other evidence shows that changes in coronary mortality over time in a given country correspond to changes in the quantity of milk consumed in the same time period. Interestingly, there is no such correlation with cheese consumption as there is with milk. It is suggested that the toxic agent in milk which contributes to heart disease is not so much the fat and cholesterol in milk as it is the milk sugar (lactose) which is converted to galactose in the body. An interesting but controversial idea is that the higher susceptibility of immigrants from India to heart disease (which has been reported by others) is due to their greater consumption of milk and milk products)
The scope of the book is quite broad. The author attempts to survey the entire published literature on the possible relationship of milk consumption to heart disease, as well as some other related topics such as the effect of wine and alcohol consumption on heart disease, the possible connection between milk consumption and cataract formation and the relevance of diabetes and certain enzyme deficiency diseases to the possible mechanism by which galactose may cause damage to blood vessels.
Although the book is written primarily for members of the medical profession, the style is more narrative than technical and the entire work should be of great interest to all readers interested in diet and health and, of course, in how to avoid becoming a victim of heart disease.
