What Happens If This Government-Sponsored Research Finds Raw Milk Really Is Good for Us?

Lo and behold, the U.S. government is sponsoring a huge project to investigate the role of bacteria in our bodies.

It’s the Human Microbiome Project, and there’s an article about it in today’s New York Times. Reading through both descriptions, I’d say these researchers are engaged in some potentially subversive stuff. Here are a few statements from the National Institutes of Health web site describing the project::

--“These (bacteria) communities…remain largely unstudied, leaving almost entirely unknown their influence upon human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition.”

--“Traditional microbiology has focused on the study of individual species as isolated units.”

--One of the project’s goals is “Understanding whether changes in the human microbiome can be correlated with changes in human health.”

Then this from the NY Times article:

--“Since humans depend on their microbiome for various essential services, including digestion, a person should really be considered a superorganism, microbiologists assert, consisting of his or her own cells and those of all the commensal bacteria. The bacterial cells also outnumber human cells by 10 to 1, meaning that if cells could vote, people would be a minority in their own body.”

--“The nature of the gut (bacteria) tribes is heavily influenced by diet…”

-- “Another goal is to understand how pathogenic bacteria manage to usurp power from the tribes of beneficial commensals in the skin or gut, causing disease.”

-- “Taking a broad spectrum antibiotic presumably wreaks devastation on one’s companion microbiome…”

Haven’t I heard variations on these ideas discussed and debated, sometimes in heated fashion, on a blog over the last couple of years?

My other question is this: what happens when this project determines that much of what the medical and public health communities have been taught is wrong?

Don’t be surprised if the study’s results need to be re-confirmed by another decade-long study, and then another. Or am I being too cynical in my view that too many people have too much to lose by research concluding that much of what we’ve believed about the role of bacteria in our health has been wrong?

Comments

[Sylvia]

--One of the project’s goals is “Understanding whether changes in the human microbiome can be correlated with changes in human health.”

Duh. Isn't it obvious; what goes in or around your body will affect it? 8.2 mil last year to study this? And more to be released this year?

Shouldn't one of the goals be:Understanding HOW & WHAT changes in the human microbiome can be correlated... ?

"Several body sites will be studied, including the gastrointestinal and female urogenital tracts, oral cavity, nasal and pharyngeal tract, and skin. "

Will they look at the whole picture or pick and chose bits and pieces? I've no doubt if the "study" shows that current mantra is wrong, the study along with its results will fade into obliteration. Follow the buck..

http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com/2007/04/human-microbiome-program.html

[Steve Bemis]

At least all the scientists listed as participating in the study are NIH or other government affiliation. This gives the study a higher probability (depending on who their friends are :-)) of 1) having a chance of being independent and accurate 2) depending on results, being buried or 3) again depending on results, being the subject of highly political senate hearings to "fix" the results, and then make them into government mandates (if, cynic that I am, things go anything like the McGovern Select Committee hearings went in the mid-1970's with the result that 30+% of Americans are now obese from eating processed "low fat" phoods).

[Don]

$8.2 study last year. HUM Here is a free study but will be rejected, no charts, no graphs, no big numbers.
Appx. 60 years ago as young children my sister and I both had our tonsils and adnoids removed, we both have suffered severely from allegeries from May thru Oct our entire lives. Strangly no one else in the family suffered from allergies. Would common sense suggest there maybe a "LINK". After 3 years on raw dairy I still have some symptions but NO PAIN. I now mow our grass with out the fear of a severe bout of sneezing, red sore eyes,and blowing my nose till its becomes raw.
Another benefit of 3 years on raw dairy is the increased size of DW and my bone structure. No I did not measure with a micrometer, not need as we can see the size change without glasses.
However no scientist in his right mind would accept this study, there is no paperwork backing up these claims, BUT IF WHAT I SAY IS TRUE IT CAN BE REPETED. All that is needed is a few brave nonraw milk drinking elderly couples willing to give up their SAD their Meds and enjoy real food. It wont take 3 years to see good results. But of course thats just my opinion, at least its free.

[Anna]

Don,

DW? Sorry, don't know what that is.

[Rob]

Some bad news in California

http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/623195.html

[Anna]

There are folks who are studying this topic, outside of that Human Microbiome Project. Often it is immunologists. One that I can thing of off the top of my head is Gary Huffnagle, a researcher at the University of Michigan Medical school.

www.med.umich.edu/microbio/bio/huffnagle.htm

www.med.umich.edu/immprog/faculty/huffnagleg.htm

www.newscientist.com/article/dn5047-antibiotics-linked-to-huge-rise-in-allergies.html

I thought his book on probiotics for the public was very good, even though he doesn't specifically address raw dairy (though he unfortunately accepts the conventional wisdom on saturated fats, but it's rare that anyone questions that if they haven't looked into it).

I wonder if he would be receptive to conducting research using raw dairy, if funding could be found?

www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Gary%20B.%20Huffnagle&page=1

[miguel]

"Although high coliform counts do not indicate that milk is tainted with harmful pathogens, regulators say coliform testing measures cleanliness, and unclean dairies are more likely to harbor harmful bacteria."

"Clean milk is safe milk," said Michael Payne, a University of California expert in food safety and a veterinarian. "It is not rocket science."

If we tested yogurt,kefir,buttermilk and cultured butter all made from pasteurized milk they would all be considered "filthy" because of the coliform count.So lets take those pasteurized dairy products off the shelf immediately before someone is killed!!!

[Don]

Anna DW = dear wife.
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/623195.html
NOT GOOD NEWS
Judge backs state of Calif.lies, raw milk must be held to a higher standard.
Corporations and corrupt money win.

"MONEY RULES OUR LAWS ARE THE OUTPUT OF A SYSTEM WHICH CLOTHES RASCALS IN ROBES AND HONESTY IN RAGS" MARY ELIZEBETH LEASE

[Larry]

I also looked upon the NIH studies in a negative light due to the way they are being spun in the news media. The findings from these studies are being made to sound like new scientific understanding never known to human kind (with no mention of the probiotic role of traditional foods). My conclusion is that this is just more gov't collusion with the food industry so that they can sell more processed food with the addition of manufactured probiotics at a higher premium. Once again, the unsuspecting public is duped into buying more industrialized junk.