Does Synutra powered milk cause breast growth in Chinese baby girls?
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Is it infant formula made of powdered milk produced by Synutra that caused breast growth in four infant girls in China? Some claim it is.
China's health ministry denied such an allegation saying that a clinical investigation in Hubei province has not found any evidence that powered milk made by a Chinese company caused three baby girls to grow breasts, CNN cited the state-run Xinhua News Agency as reporting.
Deng Haihua, a spokesman for the health ministry, was cited as saying Sunday that no over-the-limit hormones were found in the powered milk of concern.
Food authorities have tested powered milk consumed by the three baby girls as well as 42 samples of Synutra powdered milk on the market and 31 samples of dairy products by other producers.
News outlets seem to target Synutra - a major producer of infant formula in China. But the three infants had never consumed Synutra milk powder and a forth infant girl consumed some Synutra milk powder, but later switched brands.
No one knows for sure what is going on with the food these baby girls used. According to rumor mills, high hormone levels were found circulating in the blood of the girls. Even so, it is unknown that the elevated hormone was produced endogenously or ingested through powered milk.
A health observer suggested that it is highly unlikely that powdered milk based infant formula caused these girls to grow breasts because if that is the case, there should be tens of thousands of other baby girls who consumed powered milk experienced the same growth.
Among other things, cow milk may make men more susceptible to carcinogenesis induced by chemicals.
A Mongolian scientist who was a visiting researcher at Harvard University years ago suggested that compared to what is produced in Mongolia, milk produced in the U.S. may have higher levels of estrogen, which along with other hormones promotes growth of sexual reproductive system.
One study published in 2007 in Cancer Detection and Prevention suggests that consumption of commercial whole and non-fat milk increases incidence of tumors induced by certain chemicals in rats.
For the study, Qin L.Q. and colleagues from Yamanashi University in Japan gave female Sprague-Dawley rats a single oral dose of 5mg of 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene (DMBA) and then gave them commercial powder chow supplemented with different milk products, that is, whole milk, artificial whole milk, non-fat milk or artificial non-fat milk.
At week 20, rats were sacrificed and tumors were measured and numbered.
The researchers found "Tumor incidence, the cumulative number of tumors and the sums of tumor volume were higher in the whole milk and non-fat milk groups than in the artificial whole milk and artificial non-fat milk groups both at palpation and at autopsy."
Another study reported in 2009 in Journal der Deutschen Dermatologischen Gesellschaft suggests that milk does not need hormones to promote human body growth.
Melnik B. author of the report at University of Osnabrück in Germany says consumption of cow's milk and milk protein results in changes of the hormonal axis of insulin, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor or IGF-1 in humans.
By Jimmy Downs
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