Why those who eat lowfat are at significantly higher risk for stomach bugs, food poisoning and gastrointestinal disease, and how a specific fatty acid in dairy powerfully inhibits intestinal pathogens.
Have you ever noticed how some people seem to catch every single stomach bug that passes through the community while others seem completely immune?
How about the curious fact that some people get food poisoning all the time while others rarely succumb even if they ate the identical dish at the same restaurant?
It may not just be bad luck if it seems that you’re getting more than your fair share of stomach bugs.
Food Selection Impacts Gastrointestinal Risk
While “eating organic” is great, it actually doesn’t offer much protection against intestinal pathogens.
Folks who rarely eat processed foods and take great pains to make their own meals from scratch can still be plagued with more than their fair share of stomach bug woes.
Why is this?
I used to ponder this very question as to why I kept catching so many tummy bugs despite eating everything organic in my twenties.
While important, it appears that food quality is not necessarily the best way to prevent gastrointestinal illness.
Could it be the composition of the foods that we eat is a major contributory factor in the frequency of intestinal illness?
For example, is it possible that a very simple change such as increasing the amount of butterfat in the diet could actually be of benefit in avoiding gastroenteritis?
Milk Fat Protects the Gut from Pathogens
Glycosphingolipids are a special type of lipid found in bovine milk fat.
Sources include butter, cream, whole milk, whole yogurt, kefir, ghee, and cheese.
These foods offer protection against gastroenteritis because they include anti-pathogenic fatty acids.
Children who drink lowfat or skim milk suffer from acute gastrointestinal illness at a rate 3-4 times higher than children who drink whole milk. (1)
This is an incredibly significant difference!
According to the Weston A. Price Foundation:
Glycosphingolipids are lipids with single sugar molecules attached found in cell membranes, especially in the brain. They also protect against gastrointestinal infections, especially in infants and children. (2)
According to in vitro studies of milk fat, glycosphingolipids are not only protective against pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella and listeria but also against viruses and fungi as well. (3)
Taking a therapeutic quality probiotic every day is also highly protective.
Whole Dairy is Best
I experienced this same effect even as an adult.
Once I switched to whole milk products and butter and away from butter substitutes and lowfat dairy, my tendency to succumb to stomach flu vanished.
In fact, in my household, no one has had a tummy bug or gastrointestinal illness of any kind in many years!
This is not to say that consuming plenty of milkfat in the diet will guarantee complete avoidance of gastroenteritis. It will, however, significantly increase your resistance to it.
In essence, butterfat is a functional food in that it works as a broad spectrum anti-microbial agent in the gut.
What About all that Butterfat?
Concerned that all that butterfat might be bad for your health? Take heart (literally)… it’s all a myth!
Unfortunately, it’s taking decades for the public to finally awaken to the fact that those who eat butter and drink whole milk have HALF the heart attack risk as those who drink lowfat milk and eat margarine. (4)
This study followed 5,000 men between the ages of 45 and 59 for 10 years.
Of those who drank at least a pint of whole milk a day and ate butter, there was only a 1% risk for a heart attack!
What do heart doctors say?
This prominent cardiologist’s opinion of a lowfat diet is that it is “scientifically and morally indefensible”.
In summary, then, it’s not just any milk that does a body good, It’s whole milk!
(1) Milk fat and gastrointestinal illness
(2) Digestion and absorption of food fats
(3) Bactericidal Activities of Milk Lipids
(4) Milk Decreases Heart Attacks
More Information
Are there benefits with both raw milk and pasteurized homogenized milk? Thank you.
The milk fat from raw milk would be much more beneficial as homogenizing milk does oxidize the cholesterol in the milkfat.
Sarah, by oxidizing the cholesteral, do you mean this could add to the plaque in your arteries? My husband has plaque build in his heart arteries but loves whole milk especially raw milk.
Unfortunately 2 local dairies we used to buy milk from are now closed. We live in the country and thinking about breaking down and buying a dairy cow. My husband grew up on a dairy farm and swore he would never milk cows again! I think he’s rethinking that.
The study you site at the bottom of your post is 20 years old. A more current study would help to support your article. As it stands, I’m left wondering.
There are 3 studies that I sourced. One was from 2001. Why is the study from 1991 a problem .. does this make it any less relevant? Absolutely not! Recent does not necessarily make it better by a long shot especially since the study from 1991 followed 5000 men for 10 years. That’s a pretty hefty study and not one that should have been ignored as it was by the media.
Incidentally, more recent studies have confirmed that saturated fat has no link to heart disease
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/02/04/us-fat-heart-idUSTRE61341020100204
I started reading your blog a few months ago, and YOU are the reason that (through my local WAP rep) I was able to find healthy, raw milk from a local dairy farmer to feed our family. We have made a few other changes very slowly, but the milk, butter, cheese, eggs and changing our fats has been the biggest change thus far. And I have to say that NONE of us has been sick AT ALL this Winter. And I have a 1 year old and a 3 year old who touch EVERYTHING and put their hands near their mouth/face all the time! And they are not getting sick anymore! And my 3 year old used to suffer with eczema TERRIBLY during the Winter, and now it’s almost completely gone! Now, I have no idea if any of this can be completely attributed to the fact that we’ve switched to raw, wholesome dairy and changed our fats, but I sure feel like it MUST have something to do with it! Thank you so much for your blog. I know I have MUCH more to learn and change, but so far, it’s been really worth it. My family thanks you, Sarah!
Jennifer, I am so happy for you! Yes, I have been told by a number of Moms that raw milk puts eczema in remission. It’s all those wonderful probiotics in the raw milk that help to balance the gut and tame the pathogenic strains that are spilling toxins into the blood that is triggering that autoimmune reaction on the skin. Awesome story!! 🙂
I have often wondered how my family of 10 – with the kids in the school are so much less susceptible to the flu – we are rarely sick and if someone gets it we don’t all get it OR it is much less. Last year we all got H1N1 in an 8 hour period and only had one round of vomitting. My daughter’s boyfriend also caught it and vomitted 21 times that night – I felt so bad. We have been eating real butter and whole milk and full fat dairy for years – long before I changed any other part of our diet. Thanks for a great post!
Hi Christy,, thanks for this observation .. very telling in a family as large as yours. Our family also had H1N1 and it went through the house one weekend last year. No big deal. Headache, fever for a few hours. That’s it. I think one of the kids may have thrown up once, but can’t even be sure of that. It was such a snoozer it didn’t even make much of an impression on me to even remember it!
Christy – I’m curious – is all the milk/butter you’ve been consuming raw?
I wonder about goat’s milk. That is all i can get right now in raw form. I am immune suppressed from a renal transplant (12 yrs) and I do cultured dairy(Kefir, yogurt) and raw goats milk to try to keep my gut healthy. I have had issues in the past and it is not pleasant to deal with? Sarah, do you know anything on this subject that can help me (or anyone else?) Thank You, Teresa
Hi Teresa, I’m guessing that glycosphingolipids are also present in goat milk fat, but the studies I reviewed for this article only discussed bovine lipids, so I can’t be completely sure.
Great post! It is so nice to see positive articles about consuming fat! Fats have been demonized for so many years- it is past time that the public realizes that there are good fats and bad fats. So many people have bodies that are starving nutritionally because of ill-advised extreme low fat diets! Your body needs good fats to nourish the brain, heart, skin and many other parts of your body. Don’t even get me started about cholesterol!
I have to say I totally agree with this. Although we are not buying “best” such as raw milk, we use whole milk, whole fat dairy products. I have been on a diet that restricts fat for a portion of our diet and shortly afterwards caught the most horrible stomach virus I have ever had. We are hardly ever sick in our home and if the kids vomit, it is never for very long. I really enjoy your blog and appreciate the time and research you put into it Sarah!
Isn’t it so cool when science validates what we Moms know already through simple observation in our homes and of our families?
This is interesting. My son, who has never had low fat or junk, seems almost immune to stomach bugs, even when the rest of us get sick. He’s never had one, and has thrown up only twice due to food allergies. My daughter was very vulnerable for awhile as we were just discovering WAP and seemed a lot better once we were all eating more fat.
I haven’t been able to get my kids to actually drink milk before — but the other day I gave them strawberry kefir and they loved it, so I will start brewing that and mixing in strawberries and a little honey and giving them “strawberry milk” everyday! Ha…awesome solution.
Very interesting. I don’t drink cows milk. I drink coconut milk. My daughter and husband don’t drink cows milk either. He drink coconut milk some. My son is the only one who really consumes dairy and that is yogurt. I sometimes use organic butter to cook with. We haven’t had a stomach virus(there is no such thing as a stomach flu) in several years. Even though my husband has Crohn’s Disease. I don’t doubt that it has protective properties, but it’s not what has protected us.
Hi Linda, there are certainly other ways to protect the gut from invading pathogens. Frequent and generous use of homemade broth in your homemade soups and sauces is another very powerful weapon as well.
Yes – this answers my confusion. Over Christmas, we spent 2 weeks in California. I drank no milk since raw milk was not available in that area. The day we returned home, I had a cold/flu that lasted for almost a week. This was the first I had been sick in several years. I took cod liver (capsules instead of oil) and probiotics regularly and tried to eat as best I could. So this may just the be reason!
This also makes the case for why humans need to continue to drink cow’s milk. Many health enthusiasts insist that adults no longer need milk.
I love it and it works for me, so I drink it, mostly in the form of kefir and buttermilk.
Thanks for your good articles.