It may not just be bad luck if it seems that you’re getting more than your fair share of stomach bug issues or food poisoning. Rather, it has everything to do with the balance of gut flora in your intestines but also, what you are eating.
Folks who rarely eat processed foods and take great pains to make their own meals from scratch with quality ingredients can still be plagued with more than their fair share of stomach bug woes. I used to ponder this very question as to why I kept catching so many tummy bugs despite eating everything organic. 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 Your Gut From Stomach Bug Issues
Glycosphingolipids are a special type of lipid found in bovine milk fat (sources: butter, cream, whole milk, whole yogurt, kefir, ghee whole cheeses) that offer protection against gastroenteritis.
Children who drink lowfat or skim milk suffer from acute gastrointestinal illness at a rate *five times higher* than children who drink whole milk.
This is an incredibly significant difference!
I experienced this same effect. 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 over 3 years! This is pretty amazing to me considering that my kids all attend school and are exposed to these types of illnesses on a frequent basis. This is not to say that consuming plenty of milkfat in the diet will guarantee complete avoidance of gastroenteritis, only that it will significantly increase your resistance to it.
According to in vitro studies of milk fat, glycosphingolipids not only appear protective against pathogenic bacteria such as salmonella, listeria and others, but also against viruses and fungi as well. Butterfat can then be classified as a broad spectrum anti-microbial agent, although how this exactly works in the intestines is not yet completely understood.
Concerned that all that butterfat might be bad for your health? Take heart .. 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 (New Scientist 1991; 129(1759):17)! The 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 existed only a 1% risk for heart attack!
It’s not just any milk that does a body good, it’s whole milk!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sources and More Information
Bactericidal Activities of Milk Lipids
Milk Fat and Gastrointestinal Illness
Sarah Pope has been a Health and Nutrition Educator since 2002. Her work is dedicated to helping families effectively incorporate the principles of ancestral diets within the modern household. She is a sought after lecturer around the world for conferences, summits, and podcasts.
Her work has been covered by major media including USA Today, ABC, NBC, and many others.
Full Throttle or “Om”?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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 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!! 🙂
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
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.
I am somewhat of a “real food” blog junkie, and I just wanted you to know that your blog stands out as having some EXCELLENT information. Thank you for the hard work you do!
Would you have any suggestions for avoiding stomach bugs if one was restricted from consuming ANY dairy?
Hi Crunchy Pickle .. coconut fat is also quite a broad spectrum anti-microbial so coconut milk, coconut oil in the diet would be very beneficial in this regard as well. Glad you are enjoying the blog! 🙂
It is worth noting that HUMAN milk does everything that you are talking about here, except better. This is why nursing children until a natural age of weaning, between 2.5 and 7 yrs, is so important. The Secretory Immunoglobulin and stem cells in breast milk actually create the lining of the gut which is open prior to this. The exclusive feeding of breastmilk allows the gut to mature properly without the interference of the unhealthy bacteria found in formula milk or in solids. Avoiding these foods until the gut lining has developed due to sufficient application of Sig A and other healthy fats as well as stem cells prevents a susceptibility to stomach viruses from developing in the first place. Certainly consumption of healthy whole foods in later years will increase health, but it has been found that even adults who suffer from digestive tract difficulty benefit greatly from consuming human breastmilk.
A well written article – except for the fact that some folks cannot drink milk, eat yoghurt, …. cheese is out also!
I tried lactose free…. I tries A2, I tried goats milk too……. NO CAN drink any of them, use any of their products except for a tad of butter now and again! Even coconut milk makes me nausiated.
Dietician says I am casein intolerant.
Hi JustMEinT, if coconut milk also nauseates you, it’s more than casein problems. I would suppose that you potentially have gall bladder issues as well as those who get nauseated from coconut fat typically have issues digesting fats in general. If you start slow with the coconut milk and work your way up, you may be able to overcome this by slowly getting your body to adjust to higher fat foods. I’ve seen this work for others.
Sarah – perhaps your post on Swedish Bitters may have relevant info for her as well.
I had a problem with coconut oil, full fat dairy, and FCLO when I first started. FCLO gave me horrible nausea and I wanted to vomit, same thing with coconut oil. But I started at small doses and worked my way up and now I don’t have any problems taking up to 1 TBS FCLO and 1 tsp HVBO. I think it was the years of eating low fat!
This SO true!
I was trying to explain to a guy in my writing class why I need to drink milk, regardless of whether it’s raw or not (I personally buy milk that comes from one farm instead of from one of the big brands that pool milk together from multiple farms, since it’s freaking illegal to buy raw here); we were talking about his assignment, which incorporated how pasteurized milk from industrial farmed cattle can cause Crohn’s disease. I get sick if I don’t drink any at all, so I guess I’m not as much of a freak as I thought… Plus I eat tons of other fatty foods at home, since I can cook there. Maybe I should up my intake of other fatty foods so I can not be drinking so much milk in general, though, since I tend to drink a lot…
Of course, the food at my university also plays a part – I found out they use margarine instead of butter, and since I can’t cook much in my room (only a kettle and microwave in the lounge, ugh), I’ve been getting so many stomach bugs it’s ridiculous. Course, half the time it’s the food itself making me sick, but I have no doubt that my lack of fat while there plays a part. I never get sick when I’m at home!
What a fascinating article! I have been one of those who would catch every stomach bug on the block. When we started milking our own Jersey cows two years ago, I never got another one. When both cows were dry this winter, I had TWO stomach viruses!
I believe this but I often wonder about why my 2 year old got a tummy bug the day after she drank a lot of raw milk and cream. We ran out of raw milk/cream for a few weeks prior to that. It must be to do with the break but I got so worried about the milk that I didn’t let her have any for the next week. She hardly held anything down for a few days, just some sips of broth.
Bring on the butter!!! Are You a Stomach Bug Magnet? A Low fat Diet May be the Cause – The Healthy Home Economist http://t.co/LgAW8zGn
Are You a Stomach Bug Magnet? A Lowfat Diet May be the Cause. (thanks to @purple_p) http://t.co/y636e1sY
I’ve seen several go through my office in the last 2 weeks.