Estrogens And Cancer: A Case Study

Studies have shown that consuming dairy may heighten the risk of cancer in the prostate, breasts, and ovaries of adults. Janet Rallof claims that this risk stems from milk’s natural slew of hormones, growth factors, and other biologically active chemicals (5). The body’s endocrine system, which regulates your hormones, does not know how to react when we ingest the hormones in milk (qtd. Rallof 6). These foreign hormones create a disturbance in the natural hormonal processes that are already taking place. Rallof found that “Estrogens can fuel the growth of many tumors, even in the prostate - and estrogens can do this at amazingly tiny concentrations. ”(5). Therefore, adding alien hormones to your body could put you at risk for developing tumors.
While estrogens may fuel tumor growth in reproductive …show more content…
Before processing, milk from thousands of different cows is mixed together. Therefore, contaminated milk from one animal contaminates the entire batch causing a much larger problem. Leedom claims that “[it] is impossible to produce sterile milk.” (610). Possible sources of contamination are bacteria on the cow’s skin, fecal matter on the udder, contaminated milking equipment, bacteria in the udder, water used to clean the milking equipment, and milk storage equipment (Leedom 610). The bacteria from all of these sources and from thousands of different cows accumulates in the milk. There is no way to separate these contaminants out so the milk is heated to kill the bacteria, this is known as pasteurization. Though the pasteurization process would normally eliminate this problem, system failures and human error do happen (Rallof 610). Pasteurization does not sterilize the milk but it does decrease risk of making consumers sick. Since milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter aren’t consumed immediately after pasteurization there is still the possibility of