Q: What is IGF?
PJH: IGF stands for ‘Insulin-like Growth Factor’. As with the hormone insulinInsulin is a hormone made by the pancreas. It is responsible for making the body’s cells absorb glucose (sugar) from the blood…., it is a small proteinProteins are large molecules consisting of chains of amino acids. Proteins are essential nutrients for the human body – they are a building block of…. It is one of the most highly concentrated of the protein hormones in blood. Blood contains around a thousand times higher amounts of IGF than most other protein hormones and it has profound effects on stimulating growth and metabolismMetabolism is a term that is used to describe the chemical reactions that take place within the body’s cells. The body gets the energy it…. It is present in all of us and is clearly a key hormone, influencing many aspects of our health. IGFs, for example, mediate the effects of growth hormone on childhood growth. There are two types, IGF-1 and IGF-II, but these are always present with one of six other proteins, IGFBP-1 to -6, and they activate a number of tissue receptors including IGF-1R, IGF-IIR and the insulin receptor. Unravelling their complex roles is one of the frontiers of endocrinology.
Q: How does drinking milk influence our IGF levels?
PJH: Milk contains lots of hormones and growth factors including IGF, although when we drink it most of these are digested. Only a very small amount, protected in the gut by the milk protein casein, makes it into our bloodstream. This isn’t, however, the only way in which milk creates an increase in blood levels of IGF. The cocktail of hormones, small proteins and amino acidsAmino acids are commonly known as the building blocks of protein. There are 20 standard amino acids from which almost all proteins are made. Nine… in milk stimulates our own production of IGF, the net result being that IGF-1 levels in the blood increase as a result of drinking milk. To put this in context, if you were aged 20 to 30, you might normally have something like 170 ng/mL of IGF-1 in the blood. If your diet is high in dairy products you might have a level of 200 to 210 ng/mL. If you don’t drink milk your level might be 130-140ng/mL. IGF-1 levels are highest in teenage years, at the height of teenage sexual development, then decline rapidly in adulthood. In this graph, for example, you see the IGF-1 levels in men, aged 50-70, according to milk consumption. Those who have a pint or more of milk per day, compared to those with less than half a pint a day, have increased their IGF by about 25 ng/ml. This is a highly significant increase.
Q: Does this increase in IGF from milk drinking increase cancer risk?
PJH: It’s important to realise that IGF-1 is essential. It’s one of the most important hormone signallers in the body, present in relatively large amounts in the bloodstream compared to other hormones. If you have too little, which might happen on a diet completely devoid of all animal fatThere are many different types of fats; polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, hydrogenated, saturated and trans fat. The body requires good fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated) in order to… and protein, there is evidence of increasing risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and cognitive decline. But if you have too much your risk for breast, prostate and colo-rectal cancer definitely goes up. Our research, and that of researchers at Harvard and Montreal, has shown that those in the top quarter for blood IGF-I levels have approximately a three to fourfold increase in risk of breast, prostate or colo-rectal cancer. This level of increased risk is in the same order as the risk of having cardiovascular disease from a high level of cholesterol. In the case of breast cancer the link with IGF-1 is strongest with pre-menopausal breast cancer than post-menopausal breast cancer. What we don’t yet know is to what extent the risk is set in puberty, or throughout life....
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