I'm often asked my opinion about the cause or treatment of some medical condition,

but the question to instead ask is, what does the science say?

What is the best available balance of evidence published in the peer-reviewed medical

literature you have to say right now?

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

Today, some research on the effects of hormones in milk, and we start with a story about

what happens to men within an hour of drinking dairy milk.

We've known for decades that women who eat meat have higher levels of estrogen in their blood,

compared to non-vegetarians,

vegetarian women will find out 45 percent lower levels of the most potent human estrogen.

This may help explain the lower incidence of breast cancer among those eating more plant-based.

Even semi-vegetarian to eat less meat than omnivorous women may have significantly lower estrogen levels.

Why? Perhaps because vegetarian women exc have significantly lower estrogen levels. Why?

Perhaps because vegetarian women excrete two to three times more estrogens in their feces than do their meat-eating counterparts.

And why is that?

Because the average fecal output of vegetarians can be twice as high.

The thought is that because vegetarians eat

the amount of fiber closer to that which is natural for our species, those rely more on

plants have an increased fecal output which helps pull excess estrogen out of the system.

It may also have something to do with the hormones present in animal products, for example,

the higher average

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