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Pasteurized vs unpasteurized milk

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
I recently had a student tell me she was allergic to milk -- and I mean to milk proteins, not lactose-intolerant. She stated that she was able to take in unpasteurized milk just fine.

Any ideas what gives?

-J
 

PatJ

Forum Support Assistant
Messages
5,288
Location
Canada
I'll assume she's talking about cow's milk. Long shot: maybe the unpasteurized milk is from A2 cows?

https://draxe.com/goat-milk/
"Most people who are intolerant of cow milk are actually sensitive to one of the proteins found in it, A1 casein, and lack the ability to digest A1."

"On the contrary, milk that contains mostly or exclusively A2 casein produces none of these inflammatory effects. Goat milk contains only A2 casein, making it, protein-wise, the closest milk to human breast milk."

Some cows produce A2 instead of A1. An easy test of whether this has anything to do with her allergy would be to:
a) get pasteurized and unpasteurized milk that she knows has come from the same cows and try both;
b) or try pasteurized milk known to come from A2 cows;
c) or try pasteurized goats milk to see if it has the same effect. If it does then you can rule out the A1/A2 idea and be reasonably sure that pasteurization has something to do with her allergic reactions.

C would be easiest to try.

Ayurvedic medicine isn't fond of pasteurization, or especially homogenization because it apparently changes the structure of milk proteins and makes them harder to digest.
 

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
I'm pretty sure that the 'gluten intolerance is a myth' has grain lobby written all over it, @sarah darwins .

It's funny, but people disbelieve this sort of thing -- e.g. "it's a conspiracy theory!"

Which I don't get -- people will do what protects their financial interests. No one would argue that's in question. And research has to be funded by somebody, that's also not in question; funding doesn't fall from trees. Finally, who funds a study it isn't a deep, dark secret: you can look it up.

I think what people mean when they say that sort of thing is, "I was fooled into thinking = legit, and fooling me is impossible!" ;)

-J
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Pasteurized and unpasterurized milk are essentially about different proteins from an antibody perspective. Antibodies to unfolded proteins in pasteurized milk may not react to folded proteins from unpasteurized milk, because the molecular shape is different. Here we are talking gut antibodies. Once digested there is no difference, but prior to protein unfolding there would be a difference. What is unclear is how much of this mechanism could be in play in the upper digestive tract before the proteins are shredded.

PS If protein or protein fragments are able to pass through the gut wall, then a more general antibody response is possible. However I doubt much in the way of folded milk proteins could ever make it through. Maybe the issue is pasteurized milk is part digested already, being unfolded, and so might be able to pass through the gut lining much earlier in the digestive process.
 

worldbackwards

Senior Member
Messages
2,051
Were they got at by Big Milk?
Be afraid...
17875534-A-very-big-milk-bottle-in-amusement-park-Stock-Photo.jpg
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Pasteurization is the process of heating milk (or other foods) just enough to kill germs:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization
It's not quite cooked but not raw. I can't think of anything that is less digestible once it's been heated.
Milk gets unfolded prior to digestion, as it goes through the digestive tract. Pasteurized milk protein is unfolded by heat. Its more digested. The problem is its more digested from the start, right at the point of swallowing. So it sidesteps the usual digestive process.
 

Dmitri

Senior Member
Messages
219
Location
NYC
Pasteurization is the process of heating milk (or other foods) just enough to kill germs:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization
It's not quite cooked but not raw. I can't think of anything that is less digestible once it's been heated.

Plant-based foods such as seeds, legumes, leaves, etc. do become more digestible after cooking, especially those containing starch. It's not often looked into, but there is evidence that animal protein is less bioavaliable after being heated. There's probably no consistent rule, since so much depends on the temperature, cooking method, mechanical properties of the food, etc.

Prolonged time of heating of minced hake meat at 120 °C produced a more intensive protein hydrolysis than a shorter heating up to 130 °C; at the same time with temperatures exceeding 100 °C an intensive increase in the ammonia content, decrease in —SH groups content, and a decrease in protein digestibility were observed

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/food.19870311007/abstract

The aleurone layer, grain coat and embryo which constitute rice bran are rich in vitamins, lipids, protein and lysine compared with the endosperm (milled rice). A method was developed to measure the in vitro protein digestibility of raw and cooked brown rice and their histological components. The protein digestibility of cooked endosperm by the in vitro method agreed with that of other workers using in vivo techniques. The protein digestibility of the aleurone layer and grain coat from raw rice was only 25% but increased to 65% from cooked rice, due to disruption of the cellulosic cell walls at 100 degrees, which was shown by electron microscopy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6437436
 

GhostGum

Senior Member
Messages
316
Location
Vic, AU
From an anecdotal point of view I use a good organic un-homogenised full cream milk and have found it interesting that it can last around a month past its used by date and still be fine, because I assume the integrity of proteins and cultures is much better.

Those pasteurised and homogenised low fat milks are atrocious on gut flora long term I think, you see people who have used them for years who can not stomach anything else after a while, or full cream can even make them sick; talk about the low fat con.

I tend to think more and more these days that dairy for the most part is just not ideal in the diet, especially over plant based and fibre to support the stomach and flora. Suspect dairy is also somehow linked to virus susceptibility due to phlegm build up and bacteria/flora state, but I am really speculating there I guess.
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
From an anecdotal point of view I use a good organic un-homogenised full cream milk and have found it interesting that it can last around a month past its used by date and still be fine, because I assume the integrity of proteins and cultures is much better.

Those pasteurised and homogenised low fat milks are atrocious on gut flora long term I think, you see people who have used them for years who can not stomach anything else after a while, or full cream can even make them sick; talk about the low fat con.

I tend to think more and more these days that dairy for the most part is just not ideal in the diet, especially over plant based and fibre to support the stomach and flora. Suspect dairy is also somehow linked to virus susceptibility due to phlegm build up and bacteria/flora state, but I am really speculating there I guess.

My 'gut' tells me you're right. I wonder if anyone's ever searched for correlations between gut diversity and dairy / non-dairy / pasteurised / non-pasteurised diets. It's something that could quite easily be done in a Ubiome collaboration. Anyone know if Ubiome themselves collect dietary data from willing patients?
 
Messages
1,478
Would depend on whether the herd had been vaccinated. There are other microbes in raw milk and raw milk products that can get you, too.
Agreed...let's not get carried away on processes that are designed to improve public health. Vaccination has helped pretty much eliminate brucellosis over the last 20 odd years but we still need to pasteurise for many reasons including the ellimnation of many enteros which people get there knickers in a twist about here on PR.

In fact microbes love milk to grow in .....and we know how dirty farms can be ....its one of the most biologically polluting materials if it gets into our watercourses.
 

TrixieStix

Senior Member
Messages
539
I recently had a student tell me she was allergic to milk -- and I mean to milk proteins, not lactose-intolerant. She stated that she was able to take in unpasteurized milk just fine.

Any ideas what gives?

-J
Also 80% of milk is Ultra Pasteurized now rather than simply pasteurized.
 

anciendaze

Senior Member
Messages
1,841
I would just like to point out that tests of U.S. dairy herds and raw dairy products continue to find evidence that some harbor bovine leukemia virus (BLV), a retrovirus. It is not always easy to find which animals in a herd contributed the contaminated milk, and current U.S. efforts are inadequate to eliminate the virus. In cattle this causes bovine leukosis, impaired immunological function, etc. BLV infection of humans does take place, and evidence of association with breast cancer shows a substantial increase in risk in infected individuals. Similar retroviruses often infect sheep and goats.

Retroviruses are precisely the kind of slow and persistent viruses suspected in ME/CFS earlier. BLV is a delta retrovirus, as is HTLV-1, which can cause fatal human neurological disease (HAM/TSP) or leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL). Not counting HIV, which was once mistakenly claimed to be a delta retrovirus, there are now four distinct known delta retroviruses which have jumped to humans.

Under these circumstances I cannot conscientiously recommend drinking unpasteurized milk.
 
Last edited:
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1,478
@JaimeS

I’ve been thinking about why raw milk would be better than pasteurised milk since you first posted. Here are some thoughts…….they are a bit random since although I used to do quite a bit with milk proteins in the past…I am very rusty and my brain isn’t what it used to be for recalling facts etc. I have picked my wife’s brain also since she used to work for one of the UK’s biggest milk producers


1) Denaturation of Protein during pasteurisation

Pasteurisation is very tightly controlled to minimise this. Whey proteins are far more susceptible to denaturation than casein so if denaturation is to blame, then whey would be the first place to look. However whey is reportedly easier to digest so any allergic reaction due to denatured whey would be rapid before it’s digested. However, denatured whey also has a habit of becoming “heat shocked” which changes its isoelectric point making it more susceptible to coagulation which prolongs digestion?

It would be good to understand how the symptoms present themselves, e.g. is it a full instant histamine reaction or actually an intolerance reaction like lactose intolerance (bloating etc.). I only ask because of the common misdiagnosis for food allergies generally (9 out of 10 people who state they have a food allergy don’t, instead they have intolerance's due to other reasons).


2) Disruption of the Casein micelle during pasteurisation

Here is a link to the casein micelle

https://www.uoguelph.ca/foodscience/book-page/structure-casein-micelle

Without going into a lot of science, there is a load of these protein micelles that are arranged due to their molecular charge. Heat and other factors can disrupt this. If the arrangement of casein proteins are disrupted (different from denaturation) then this may explain why the body reacts differently to them?


3) Denaturation of Enzymes in raw milk during pasteurisation

Raw milk contains a variety of different enzymes, some are more stable to heat than others:

http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/enzymes_T3.html

However from a food intolerance point of view the absence of lactase in pasteurised milk is the only one that would be relevant. I know you said that your friend was not lactose intolerant but perhaps he\she might want to have a re-look at this? There is an interesting article on the migration of man and how lactase persistence varies across different populations as a result

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140313123133.htm

However if they have a full on rapid histamine reaction (wheezing, rash etc.) upon ingestion of small quantities of milk protein then this can be disregarded.

4) Different herds producing different proteins

Different breeds of cows produce different proteins in their milk. It’s possible that pasteurisation has nothing to do with it and it just happens that the farm selling the raw milk has a different herd of cows to the pasteurised milk. The most interesting example of this is A1 vs A2 milk. There are loads of articles on this. Personally I think this has been a little over-hyped in the press but it might be worth considering?


That all I can think of I’m afraid. It might be worth subtly trying to find out whether the allergy is an allergy or an intolerance and whether they have tried other dairy products without a problem (Butter, yoghurts, cheese, goat’s milk etc.). It might help to isolate the problem?
 

JaimeS

Senior Member
Messages
3,408
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
It would be good to understand how the symptoms present themselves, e.g. is it a full instant histamine reaction or actually an intolerance reaction like lactose intolerance (bloating etc.). I only ask because of the common misdiagnosis for food allergies generally (9 out of 10 people who state they have a food allergy don’t, instead they have intolerance's due to other reasons).

It's a matter of seconds. My throat starts to swell, and I begin to have trouble breathing (that seems unrelated to the throat itself.) It's a full-on allergic reaction, though not one that ever reaches anaphalaxis. (sp?) I don't get bloating or digestive issues with milk at all, or maybe I should say that the other symptoms are far more noticeable.

The individual who I mentioned is an old student I don't talk to anymore. Great 'food' for though, @arewenearlythereyet !