Clinical effects of consuming milk and its products.

There is no need to catalogue the nutritional properties of milk as the value of the proteins, vitamins, minerals, etc., in milk is well known and accepted, and the beneficial effects resulting from the ingestion of these compounds have long been described. The protein of milk is still used in the treatment of malnutrition in children both in hospital and in large communities. It is routine advice, accepted by government by the provision of a subsidy, to give extra milk in pregnancy and lactation and to the preschool and school child. In 1976 dairy foods (excluding butter) in the US contributed only I I .2% of food energy available, but provided 21.9O/o of the protein and 75.0% of the calcium intake (Marston & Friend, 1976). It is with the less well known aspects of the clinical consequences of consuming milk, excluding milk fat, that this presentation is concerned. Protein Intolerance. It was in 1958 (Davies) that milk allergy in infancy was first reported in the United Kingdom, and it is considered to be the most easily diagnosed as well as the most severe of food allergies in childhood and as the children get older the symptoms become more insidious and less related to the gastrointestinal tract (Freier, 1976). Food allerg); after the first year of life may be on the increase with about one child in 200 affected but what proportion is due to milk or to various additives, preservatives, drugs, etc., due to the child's widening dietary experience, is not known (Freier, 1976). As there are multiple proteins in milk, the reactions of those who are intolerant of any one or more of these proteins are varied and little work seems to have been done to identify which of the proteins is the major offending factor. Most information about intolerance to milk proteins refers to children during the first two years of life. The incidence of the condition in this age group seems unsure but values from 0. or respiratory tract and the diagnosis is made with a degree of certainty when the symptoms disappear when milk is removed from the diet and reappear when milk is again included in the diet. In most cases milk ingestion ceases to give rise to symptoms when the child is over two years of age. A different type of intolerance to milk protein from that just described is an intolerance to fresh …