Study reports “ No compelling evidence was found for an association between dairy products or vitamin D intake and PD risk indicating a potentially limited relevance of dairy intake in PD risk than previously described.”
I minimized dairy for a while but found I do better with it in my diet. So this is reassuring.
Another conflicting observation...
I can tolerate small amounts of dairy but a lot of dairy seems to make things worse.
What I take away from this study is that if you don't have PD and consume dairy products, you can relax..... odds are, you're not going to get it. What it doesn't address (that's more relevant to our interests) is what dairy does to progression in those who already have PD or RBD. Laurie Mischley's results in this regard indicate dairy's a "no no," so we'll continue to stay away.
In the section of this paper entitled "biological explanation," the authors state; "It has been shown that a significant proportion of organic environmental chemicals can bioconcentrate in milk and adipose tissue [32, 33]. Therefore, the accumulation of pesticides represents a plausible mechanism through which the association between dairy product consumption and PD risk in previous studies could be explained. In the present study, no evidence for an association between dairy intake and PD could be observed. One potential explanation for this is that, particularly when considering this plausible mechanism, the present cohort may have been exposed to different levels of pesticides present in the dairy products they consumed."
So one possibility for the widely discrepant conclusions of different studies is that pesticide levels in dairy vary widely, as does people's ability to neutralize those chemicals. I'm guessing PwP are probably among the least able to do so.
Editing this to add; A more careful read of this study suggests people in the UK should be alarmed by it. "In this study, we found no notable evidence for an association of PD risk with the consumption of dairy products or dietary vitamin D intake in the large EPIC4ND sub-cohort. However, we found a positive association between dairy consumption and PD risk when solely examining the UK cohort."
Interesting. Maybe we should stick to organic dairy products to minimise our synthetic chemicals intake.
Agreed. This is exactly what I do. Organic cream for my coffee is $0.50 more expensive than the non-organic creamer so it's worth it.
There are significant differences between the United States and the European Union regarding pesticides in dairy products. The EU has stricter regulations and bans many pesticides that are permitted in the US, resulting in lower residue levels in European dairy. Additionally, the inspections by European authorities ensure better safety for these products.
Perhaps the origin may explain the differences between various studies. The same could apply to the findings of Laurie Mischley, who primarily has experience with American consumers so far.
I always thought the blanket "no dairy" was misguided and based on weak data.
I have fermented dairy (and I have a tub of ice cream [with real sugar and few ingredients] about every 10 days).
I found this study: Intake of Fermented Dairy Products Induces a Less Pro-Inflammatory Postprandial Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cell Gene Expression Response than Non-Fermented Dairy Products: A Randomized Controlled Cross-Over Trial: sci-hub.se/10.1002/mnfr.202...
According to this trial, fermented dairy products are less pro-inflammatory than non-fermented dairy products. They compared fermented products (cheese and sour cream) with non-fermented products (butter and whipped cream). "In this study, we have shown that intake of a high-fat meal composed of fermented dairy products, and especially cheese, has a less pro-inflammatory effect than intake of the non-fermented butter and whipped cream".
Okay, I also still use butter (which is allowed on the SCD) and per this study, I can keep my sour cream.
i avoided dairy for 2 years. I just recently added it back in without sugar and high fat (eg butter, cream, hard cheese). Seems to not impact symptoms and tastes great! I should mention Ive been pushing ketovore for 100 days which seems to help. I noted Collin potter had cheese and william curtis had full fat cream and kept their symptoms low.
But neither of the gentlemen recovered as I did.
I bought your book and read it. I have no lymms desease per test. I have a massive improvement following ketovore, exercise, hydration and meditation. It seems to be the answer but will take years as nerves are slow to heal? I guess you are against dairy but you seem ok with fruits which seems strange if sugar is a part of the problem
I read this with a large pinch of salt until I see further evidence of no vested interests and/or more research.
Animal dairy has been associated with any chronic disorders such as osteoporosis, cancer, dementia as well as PD, so there is certainly a health risk.
My view is that we need to look ate totally untied research and avoid risks while that happens - if ever.
FWIW, I was diagnosed 9 years ago, and my MDS (who is the director of a Parkinson's Foundation Center for Excellence) says that my progression is among the slowest he has ever seen in a clinical practice covering decades and thousands of patients. He says, "Whatever you're doing, keep it up." I eat dairy with every meal.
N = 1, of course, but the anti-dairy "position" at this point strikes me as more emotional or religious than scientific. The best evidence I have seen for it is speculative and based on correlations rather than evidence of causation. Better evidence may come in later, but until it does my $0.02 would be to eat what works for you.
This is excellent to hear! Would you be comfortable sharing any specifics? I was diagnosed at 38, 9 months ago, and I've been exercising for 30 minutes 5 - 7 days a week, I've eliminated all processed foods, I eat mostly meats (chicken, beef, fish), nuts, pumpkin seeds, fermented vegetables, cream, coffee, eggs, cheese, plenty of water, yogurt, berries and that's truly about it. I'm wondering if you have a similar diet because if you have the slowest progression your MDS has ever seen, I'm certainly trying to do the same.
How is your symptoms and progression?
Progression seems slow, but it also has not been too long. I haven't noticed much difference since being diagnosed. For background, I have non-tremor dominant PD. Extreme stiffness and slowness on my right side and I have intention tremors. My voice gets hoarse starting in the late afternoon some times. I can barely wiggle my fingers on my right hand or make the hand motion to wave goodbye.
I wouldn't advocate imitating my diet, it might not work for you. Through trial and error I have identified the foods that seem to work for me, and that's the best advice I can offer. That said, FWIW, I eat eggs and toast for breakfast, with a glass of milk. I eat a mango/berry smoothie with kefir, psyllium husks, whey protein isolate, and creatine for lunch. For dinner I eat whatever my son cooks, which is usually some species of meat and potatoes or rice, with a bowl of bran flakes (plus milk) for dessert. It's a crazed, hedonistic life, I know.
I walk a couple miles every day and work out (rowing machine, exercise bike, calisthenics) 5 or 6 times a week -- moderately, not super high intensity. I'm careful about getting good sleep. I realize that sometimes PD is my job but I never let it become my hobby, if that makes sense. IMHO virtually all supplements are worth less than the time, stress, and money that goes into researching, buying, and (unscientifically) testing them on yourself, but again YMMV and that's just my approach.
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate your openness. I totally agree I won't imitate your diet. I was just very curious to see what you might be doing differently. Seems like sleep and exercise help a lot, which isn't surprising. Thanks again.
Quote; "N = 1, of course, but the anti-dairy "position" at this point strikes me as more emotional or religious than scientific."
To make this statement, and then take a "pro-dairy" stance based on your personal experience, strikes me as the height of hypocrisy. Certainly there is a lot more evidence of the negative effects of dairy, than there is of your slow progression being anything other than good luck.
Well that escalated quickly. I'll try to contain my rampant hypocrisy, or at least reel it in from those dizzying "heights." I don't recall taking a "pro-dairy" stance -- that would be odd because I don't have a pro-dairy stance. I specifically declined to advocate my diet based on my experience. I said, until we have clearer evidence "my $0.02 would be to eat what works for you." Not what works for me, what works for you.
I apologize if I offended you. I have a relentlessly logical mind that causes me to speak too frankly sometimes. Aspergers, maybe?
You qualified your later comments, but why did you initially emphasize that you eat dairy daily and are progressing slowly, if not to suggest that dairy is not a significant factor in PD? You had to realize that would be the takeaway. You also pooh-pooh-ed the studies that suggest the opposite is true. Yes, they're correlative, but there's a plethora of them and scientists in the field take these studies seriously. Your advice to ignore them and just "eat what works for you" didn't sit well with me, sorry.
Of course causation studies are better than epidemiological ones, but we all know how much money is available for non-pharmaceutical double-blind studies, and how much time they take. We also know how much useful advice has come from them in terms of what can be done to slow progression. Exercise, that's about it. So people who are looking to be pro-active about their disease are left to guess what they should or shouldn't do, eat or not eat, etc.
One of the most valuable resources I've discovered here is Laurie Mischley, who has taken a pragmatic approach to research in an attempt to give people tools to slow progression. She's collected information about what's working and not working for thousands of people with PD, and is generous with her data. For those who are interested, here's a video in which she explains her approach and talks about the results of her research. The section on dairy starts at 22:50. youtube.com/watch?v=noVYssb...
You can't simultaneously claim to have a "relentlessly logical mind" and then rely on correlation to advise people on how to manage a serious disease with supposedly scientific authority. Whether "people are looking to be proactive" has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the available evidence is any good. Their desire to intervene is understandable, but it doesn't relieve you of the obligation to base treatment recommendations on actual evidence. You appear to be arguing that their desire relieves you of that constraint.
Correlation doesn't equal causation, period.
For Laurie Mischley's study it doesn't even look close, to me. She only looks at a few thousand people. (For correlation to be even remotely meaningful you need way more than that. Smoking, for example, hundreds of thousands of people got cancer before they finally decided it really did cause cancer)
Everything is self reported--when she says "folks do worse" that is based only on how folks say they they are doing.
Mainly though, like any correlative study, there is so much user bias. Do people who drink skim milk also eat more carbs? Do people who avoid milk tend to eat vegan? Do they drink milk then take C/L which then doesn't work because of protein interaction? She only asks about your activity in the last month (with boxes to tick) so you might've been drinking buckets of milk for years before the study...who knows?
I've been in her study for years and it always kind of frustrates me that I can't scream in it: I drink/eat TONS of dairy and--10 years in--I've progressed very slowly.
Thank you for that insider's perspective, and thank you for participating in Mischley's study. Are her results the "be all and end all" for determining our approach to food and supplements? Of course not. She's quite bullish on red wine, but it exacerbates my spouse's RBD, so no matter how much we'd love to indulge, we don't. Well, not very often. 🥴
I agree that observational studies have drawbacks, but still maintain that making choices based on the outcomes of thousands makes more sense than basing them on the anecdotes of a few people reporting here. "Can" one consume TONS of dairy and progress slowly? Yes. Is it likely? Looking at epidemiological evidence and the results Mischley is getting I have to say....maybe not.
That "maybe not" is why we're avoiding dairy....rather be safe than sorry. If it's eventually proven to be innocuous, we'll pig out on every cheese known to man.
If the tone was "maybe don't eat a ton of dairy" I wouldn't raise my eyebrows, but that isn't the tone at all. It's more like a religious crusade against the sin of dairy consumption, complete with persecution of the unbelievers. Your reaction is typical. Listen to what you are saying: "We know we don't have solid data to support our position, but that's because the evil people with money won't spend it on the studies we want to see. If we had the studies they'd say what we already believe without them." And your conclusion is that people with honest questions or who reasonably point out the gaps in your evidence or who have actual experience that contradicts your orthodoxy need to be shouted down with insults or, if that doesn't work, wheedled to not rock the boat because we all know the answer (dairy is evil, or maybe meat, or lectins, or gluten) and impressionable people are liable to be led astray. No, the point is we DON'T know the answer, and until we have hard data, it seems pretty irresponsible and a little desperate to tell people to ignore their own experience in favor of your unsubstantiated theory.
Heh...well, your spouse might be interested in this artcle: nytimes.com/2024/02/17/well...
which basically debunks everything good about red wine now. And it's for the same reason--the effective uselessness of observational studies. In the case of red wine, it was (they believe) due to "healthy user bias". People THINK red wine is healthy, so people who care about their health tend to be the ones who drink it. Well, those are the same people who tend to take care of themselves in other ways--see a doctor more often, eat fresh food, exercise, etc...
Anyway, I pay zero attention to observational studies. On the other hand, if I didn't LIKE dairy, I wouldn't force myself to drink it/eat it it.
Why do you participate in her study if you're convinced of it's uselessness?
That is a good question. I signed up to participate a long time ago, before I knew what it was.
But basically, I say YES to pretty much every parkinson's study that finds me and also, I thought it was more about supplements. In my mind that would be a little less fraught with bias. (Whether I take alpha lipoic acid or NAC or Mg L threonate etc at whatever dose...?) (Though I guess I could be wrong.)
Now I just feel guilty dropping out. The fact is, as I said, I eat a huge amount of high fat dairy (I am on a ketogenic diet, actually) and I am progressing very, very slowly. I also drink next to no wine. Maybe my voice helps to temper her results a teeny bit?
Italian cows eat grass without pesticides to make this cheese which in my opinion is the best food for our brain for the perfect combination of minerals, vitamins, proteins, fats and essential amino acids, It also tastes great.
foodstruct.com/food/cheese-...
How I miss a good Italian cheese! A huge chunk of parmesan would be the first thing I rush to eat as soon as I get the Produodopa pump prescribed, fitted and working!
...this endorsement of dairy is in no way to be construed as support for products from caged animals on feed lots, injected with growth hormones and antibiotics, ‘grazing on corn’. 😰
Nuff said 🌹
Dairy and Ketogenic
Inflammation and dairy products
Did you know that one? (Calcium)
