Is This Unknown Protein In Dairy Destroying Your Health?

0:00 – Intro

1:22 – Symptoms from Casomorphins 2:19 – What are Casomorphins

3:18 – A1 vs A2 Dairy

7:57 – What About Yogurt & Cheeses

10:52 How Do Casomorphins Effect The Body

13:43 – Is It Really Lactose Intolerance?

15:28 – Casomorphins Can Drive Inflammation

16:22 – Casomorphins Can Trigger Histamine Reactions

17:44 – Casomorphins Can Effect Cognitive Function

19:12 – A2 Dairy Options 20:17 – Aged Cheeses

22:05 – Whey Protein, Cream & Butter

In my experience working with clients through a pro metabolic lens, I found that many people do not actually tolerate dairy very well. Now, in this video, I want to discuss one of the major reasons I think people struggle with dairy, and that is the opiate peptides known as the Omo morphines. With this, what I first want to do is share with you the typical symptoms I’m seeing with my clients and people who are working in my program who have issues with Omo morphines.

Then I want to show you what Omo Morphines are. And from there, I want to talk about what they can do to your body and how you can incorporate dairy while avoiding the effects of Omo morphines if you are somebody who is sensitive to them. Now, before we jump in to the meat of this video, I. What I want to preface this video with is that I don’t think that dairy is necessarily a terrible food.

I think that if you tolerate dairy, it’s an excellent food. It’s very rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, has a great fatty acid profile, et cetera. However, I’m creating this content around dairy. ’cause there’s many people who are jumping into the bioenergetic sphere, the pro metabolic spheres, and are having difficulties with dairy.

And I wanna provide some context for these people and some nuance to the dairy conversation so that they can figure out why they may not be tolerating the dairy and what they can do about it. So again, this isn’t a video to trash dairy. This will provide nuance to people who are struggling with dairy.

’cause I, myself, and many of my clients have been people who have not done very well with dairy products. First things first. What are the symptoms that I typically see with people who are not tolerating dairy well, or I determine that the response is largely related to Omo morphines? The first one is histamine reactions to dairy.

So this is rashes, this is hives, things like this. The next one is constipation, a slowing of bowel transit time. From there, there’s intestinal irritation, so you can actually have kind of an opposite effect where the, the dairy products will move through you quickly. Now, that could also be related to lactose, but it could be the irritation and you can get bloating from the dairy without having either constipation or having, uh, diarrhea.

I also tend to see brain fog and a lack of motivation. If you don’t do well with Omo morphines. And the last thing I tend to see is an effect on hormones like testosterone in men, and then a subsequent change in libido. So these are big components that I tend to see and I, I usually tie them to a poor reaction to Omo, morphines, uh, and their opiate-like effects on the body.

So with that, what actually are Omo? Morphines? So. We have a paper here titled Does A Little Difference Make A Big Difference? Bovine Beta Caine, A One and A Two Variants and Human Health and Update. And in this paper, the researchers tell us exactly what KOMO Morphines are. So they say Beta caseomorphins are a group of peptides with a chain length of four to 11 amino acids, all starting with tyrosine residue, which is critical to their opioid activity.

So basically these, these omo morphines are peptides found in the casein fraction of milk. And they’re just essentially chains of amino acids and they have an opiate-like effect. So they have similar effects to things like morphine or oxycodone. So they mirror some of those effects because they interact with the opiate receptors in the body.

And so we can see the different case of morphines here. There’s strings of amino acids and you have beta case of morphine, four to beta komo morphine 11 with one of the most famous or prominent one being beta komo morphine seven, which much of the research has focused on. This leads us to the question of a one and a two dairy, because typically it’s said that a two dairy doesn’t actually lead to the same problems of a one dairy, and it’s around the beta case of morphines, and this is that there’s actually validity to this case.

Uh, and I do find with clients that people who don’t do well with a one dairy may actually be able to tolerate a two dairy, and we’ll talk about that with the solutions. But basically what we’ll see here is, and from the same paper, the researchers say Beta komo morphine seven is yielded by the successive gastrointestinal proteolytic digestion of beta caseine A one and B, but not a two by the enzymes Pepin pancreatic elastase and leucine amino peptidase.

So essentially what we see is that Beta Cain A one and B, so diff this are different types of Cain. They can release the beta case of morphines, whereas a two tends not to release the beta caseomorphins. And we’ll, I’m gonna talk about why in just a second. So the researchers go on to say, they say the cause of this difference is due to a single nucleotide polymorphism of the beta Caseine gene at the SNP 67 and Proline substitution by histidine in a one of the beta caseine molecule.

This amino acid substitution results in the conformational difference in the expressed protein secondary structure, which may exert an influence on the physical properties of their respective casein mycells. They say additionally, the peptide bond between proline and isoleucine and the A two variant has a higher enzymatic resistance than that between histidine and isoleucine in the A one variant.

Therefore, the A one beta caseine is more readily hydrolyzed, resulting in the release of beta komo Morphin seven. So what does all this mean? Basically, this is Cain here. This is the strings of amino acids that come from Cain, and we have a two Cape Beta Cain here and we have a one beta Cain here. So what’s the big difference?

Well, at position 67, so this is the 67th amino acid. You can see in a two beta Cain Proline is here, whereas an A one beta caseine hise is there. And why is that special? Well, proline basically blocks the digestive enzyme, whereas if Histidine is here, it allows the digestive enzyme to actually get access and release this peptide.

Here we see beta komo, Morphin seven, and then that peptide then is, once it’s free from the Cain’s protein structure, is then able to exert its effects on the body. Now, the next thing is in what types of dairy. It’s like, so we know it’s in a one casing, but do we see this in yogurt and cheeses and things like this?

And so, and, and also is there enough to actually have an effect? So going from that same paper, the researchers go on to say, they say Beta komo morphines and their precursors have been identified in milk and various dairy products. A quantitative examination of the beta case Amorin seven in the fresh and hydrolyzed by enzyme bovine milk, revealed that in hydrolyzed a one milk, there was a fourfold higher level of beta case morphine seven than an A two milk.

Whereas in non hydrolyzed milk traces of beta komo morphine seven were found. Small amounts of beta KOMO morphine. Seven. After digestion of the A two beta Caine were also detected by Duarte, Vasquez, etal and Lambers, et al. When the Caine gets into the digestive tract and the enzymes start to break down the protein, it actually releases beta KOMO morphine seven, and when they take milk and they add digestive enzymes to it, they actually find that beta case of Morphin seven is released significantly more, four times more in a one milk than in a two milk.

The researchers go on. They continue. They say other results were obtained by hack et al, who found a 3.2 times higher level of beta caso morphine. Seven released from a one A one variants after enzymatic digestion in comparison to A one A two variant of beta cain and no beta komo morphine. Seven. After the digestion of a two A two variant of the A of the beta Casey, the cattle can inherit different and inherit different genes.

So you have a one, A one, a one a two, and a two A two. This is basically telling us the type of cain that is produced. So when you have cattle who have a two, A two Cain, they’re, they have the genes for A two, A two Cain, right? They’re homozygous for a two. What you find is that their milk does not release beta komo morphine seven.

But when you have cattle who are a one A two, so their heterozygous for this gene, they release some beta case of morphine seven. And then when you have cattle who are homozygous for A one A one Caine, they actually release quite a bit more beta case of morphine seven. And again, it’s related to the structure.

That I showed you here earlier where the A one variety, the A one beta caseine has a histidine at position 67, whereas an A two beta caseine, it has a proline, and this affects how the digestive enzymes are able to interact with that protein. Next up, the question is, can we find these in cheese and yogurt and things like this?

And so the researchers say precursors of beta komo morphines or beta komo, morphine nine and beta komo morphine 10 were also found in gutta Swiss blue limburger and brie cheeses, but not in mature cheddar cheeses, perhaps due to the degradation during the ripening process. So this is actually interesting ’cause some people find a lot of clients that have worked with said, Hey, I can only have a problem with cheese, but that’s mostly casing.

What’s going on. And essentially as certain cheese are ripened and aged over time, they actually degrade. The bacteria can degrade the beta case morphine seven. And also the enzymes present in the cheese and the aging process itself. Beyond the bacteria present in the milk or in in the culture, may actually degrade the peptides in and of itself.

They go on to say, other research has reported the presence of beta komo morphine seven and gorgonzola, guta fina and cheddar aams guta. Rockpool and Brie. Uh, Kaza Wat and Camping and Bri cheeses. So basically there’s multiple different types of cheeses that still contain beta komo morphine seven. But typically the general idea is that the more aged the cheese, the less likely that you may find these peptides.

And the researchers say here, many of these findings were qualitative. However, based on the available data, it seems that short ripening of soft cheeses, so mold, cheeses, and French type cheeses contain more beta case of Morphin seven. Than a Dutch type semi-hard cheeses that are riper for or ripens for longer.

Something else to consider here is I have had some people who don’t actually do well with a two be, uh, a two beta Caine milks like the a two milk variety that you can find in the store. I. And so there is some research that shows that there may be some release of beta komo morphine, seven. However, I would wonder if that’s from, uh, varieties of cows that are a one, A two.

So they’re heterozygous, not homozygous for a, uh, a two, A two. And the researchers say the release of Beta case of morphine seven, um, from both a one and a two milk beta Caines was recently confirmed by Lambers et al, but did not, uh, but not by Hak et al, who did not find beta caseomorphins in the hydrolyzed A two milk.

The presence of Beta case of Morphin seven was also identified in vivo. In the jejunum of healthy humans who ingested bovine milk or casing. Although the authors did not specify the parenteral protein variant, they estimated that the amount of beta caci morphine was sufficient to elicit a biological action.

You may find it in a two milk, so if you don’t tolerate a two milk, it’s potentially you are releasing some of the beta case of morphines. Although, again, like the question is, is the milk used in that study homozygous A two? A two, or was there a one a two present for the genes? And then the other thing that we see here is that the beta caseomorphins can in fact make it into circulation, and they do find it in the human digestive tract.

The question is, is it enough to have an effect? Um, and basically what the authors say here is that yes, the beta case morphines can indeed have an effect. So with that, what are the effects of the beta case of morphines on the body? What can you expect? So I gave you the symptoms, but do I have mechanisms to actually support those symptoms?

And yes, of course I do. So we’re gonna go through the research here. So you say beta case of morphine seven. This is the one that’s mostly researched, is known to influence the endocrine nervous and immune systems by activating the mu opioid receptors, which leads to different effects such as analgesia, sedation, reduced blood pressure, nausea.

Decreasing respiration and bowel motility. And we have a graphic here where they show you have a one, a two, A one and a one varieties. What happens is milk gets, they produce milk, it gets broken down here into Cain, and then that cain can get broken down into Beta Cain. So this is for 250 grams. So an eight ounce glass of milk will provide roughly two to three grams of beta cains.

Um, now from there, the beta cain, you have the beta of Morphin seven. Which that peptide gets cleaved by, by the digestive enzymes, and it interacts with the mu opioid receptors. And then it has a variety of different effects. And so some of the effects they talk about, they, they break it down from the heart, bone, brain, and gut.

And they say with the heart, there is some research associating. Again, this is associated epidemiologic components. There’s some rat studies with it too, but it’s not clear cut that there’s higher mortality rates from ischemic heart disease in association with beta case morphine seven. But again, this is not, this is still, uh, very young in the research.

So I wouldn’t say this conclusive. They say there’s lower osteoblastic activity, higher risk of hip fracture from the, from the opioid peptide in the brain. They say there’s an increased preference for a high fat diet, which drives obesity plus, um, they’re, they say that there’s effects on the gut and on the immune system.

So they say there’s reduced cysteine uptake, and then there’s an increase, and this is the one that was done in humans specifically increasing a range of markers of intestinal inflammation with an activation of the TH two. Pathway of the immune system. And so basically we see increased immune immune response with IgE and IgG, increased infiltration of leukocytes, um, and then changes in glutathione concentrations to the cell, as well as changes in IL four histamine, myel peroxidase, and monocyte chemo tract protein as well.

So basically what you’re seeing is it can interact with the immune system and it can also interact with the opioid system, which can in, uh, induce sedation. It can also affect dopamine balance ’cause the opioids have, uh. As sort of antagonistic relationship with dopamine, which then can rise prolactin and have a negative impact on the, the sex steroids ’cause prolactin controls to some extent, LH and FSH signaling, um, on the gonads, which are responsible for the production of sex steroids so’s a variety of ways that BCM seven, if you’re sensitive to it, can give you a, a series of symptoms.

And so I want to go into them specifically now. So the first thing is that. A lot of people who may think that they actually have lactose intolerance may be having issues with the beta case of morphines. Inside the milk from the paper they say palate all suggests that bovine beta komo morphine, seven, derived from a one beta casein could also be an important contributor to milk intolerance syndrome.

Hack et al and Barnett et al confirmed that the consumption of beta case of morphine five and seven induce an inflammatory immune response in the guts of mice and rat respectively. Moreover, human trials performed by ho etal suggests differences in gastrointestinal responses in some adult humans consuming milk containing a one or a two beta caseine.

So some people don’t do well with the case of morphines and again cause intestinal in inflammation by itself. They go on to further say a study conducted by Quinn Etal. Also supported the thesis that A one, A one and a one A two Beta KC consumption by subjects with lactose intolerance was associated with gastrointestinal inflammation and negative post dairy digestive com discomfort symptoms.

Pseudo allergic skin reactions to opiate sequences of bovine cain and healthy children were presented by palate etal, Taylor, et al, and Zelensky, et al. So basically what you’re seeing is in human studies. There’s a negative response in some people to Beta Caseomorphins. This is why, this is why I think some people, uh, I’ve had some clients who have no problem with a one dairy.

They don’t have any symptoms from it at all. And then I have other people who a one dairy and even a two dairy is no bueno for them. They can’t tolerate it at all. And again, we all come from different backgrounds. We all have a little bit different physiology, and I think this adjusts our responses to some of these different components.

So some people may not tolerate the beta case of morphines. And so we’ll talk about what you can do with that in, in just a few minutes here. The next thing that we see. Is that the beta komo morphines can actually drive inflammation. So from the paper they say effects were observed in preschoolers with mild to moderate milk intolerance.

Results contain measurements including hemoglobin interleukin four, IgG, IgG one, uh, beta komo, morphine, seven, glutathione, CRP, and IgE. So these are immune markers, inflammatory markers. They say it was found that even short-term consumption of conventional milk significantly increased both pro-inflammatory markers related to the TH two immune response.

And beta komo morphine level levels in the serum. And on the case of a two milk consumption, all the parameters showed no statistically significant difference. So in children who don’t tolerate milk, when they had a one casing, they had an inflammatory response. Whereas when they had the A two beta caine, they did not have that response.

They say, based on the results, the author’s concluded that the exclusion of a one milk from the diet may help alleviate adverse gastrointestinal symptoms in lactose intolerant children. The next thing we see, and this is actually something I had experienced myself. Is that the beta cains can trigger histamine responses.

So I remember when I first started and embarking on the the bioenergetic diet or a peat inspired diet, I started to incorporate milk. Now, it took me a little while to get there because you know, I was coming from low carb and paleo and all this type of stuff. But when I started to incorporate milk, I started to get weird rashes and hives for me.

I’m very sensitive beta caseomorphins, so I don’t do very well. With casein at all. And so the research is what they say Here. They say it’s suggested that beta komo morphines can induce pseudo allergic reactions by histamine, re-released from immune cells. Step Nick and Keurig showed inductive effects on the mast cells of rodents after pre incubation with beta caseomorphins.

Seven. Immediately in dose dependent wheel and flare like reactions in the skin of healthy children were observed after beta case of morphine, seven intradermal injection. Basically, some people will develop immune reaction or potentially could develop immune reaction to this peptide. And again, I don’t think it’s everyone ’cause I have some clients no problem with it.

But I’ve also, for myself, like when I was doing quite a bit of dairy, maybe it was the beta omo morphine seven triggering this histamine release for me. Maybe it was things going on with inflammation in the intestine. From the dairy itself that was causing a problem, but either way, I was having histamine reactions and a variety of digestive issues when I was incorporating large amounts of dairy into my diet, whether a one or a two.

The next thing you say here is that the beta case of morphine seven or the beta case, morphines in general, can have a negative impact on cognitive function. So they say it is hypothesized that similarly to pharmacologic opioids, food derive exorphins. So the exogenous morphines is what EXORPHINS stands for.

So exogenous opiate components from food such as beta case morphine seven, can also cross the blood-brain barrier. It is likely that they can bind to transporting proteins that protect them from the hydrolytic action of peptidase in the blood, and then could become a substrate for the carrier peptide transport system in the blood-brain barrier.

As beta isomorphic seven is a mu opioid receptor agonist. When it crosses the blood-brain barrier, this could activate the respective receptors of the central nervous system, a crucial component of the internal messaging systems that involve endorphins and ankle fallons. So essentially what you’re seeing is that.

This peptide may actually have opiate effects directly in essential nervous system, which is why I think people tend to have brain fog, loss of motivation and changes into their libido when they go on high dairy diets, if they are sensitive to beta caseomorphins. So we have some mechanisms here where this is actually plausible, and again, these are symptoms that I’ve seen with quite a few clients.

Incorporating dairy and removing dairy solves this problem. And again, for myself, after spending almost one to two years. Trying to make dairy work. I was having symptoms that mirror some of these effects. I was like, oh, maybe. Maybe I don’t react well to beta caseomorphins. And when I cut out dairy, things got significantly better.

So with that, what can you do to actually manage these beta case of morphines? You have to cut out dairy altogether, or is there ways that you can actually minimize these effects or some workarounds? In my perspective, I think there’s a spectrum. I don’t think it has to be all or nothing. And the first step to minimizing the impact of Omo morphine, if you know you have a problem with Omo morphines is to try to switch to a two dairy options.

So this is gonna be things like a two cows dairy, which is becoming much more popular in Western countries. There’s sheep’s dairy, there’s goat dairy, and there’s buffalo dairy. So these animals. There’s also camel dairy, but I don’t see that very often on the, on the grocery store shelves. But essentially, these animals are typically a two variety animals, where you won’t find the beta case of morphine peptide easily released from the Cain structure.

Again, because of that amino acid substitution at PO position 67. Basically, I would try these dairy options first for milk, for yogurt, for cheese, for any of these different products. Now, if that doesn’t work, if you still don’t tolerate the A two varieties, after switching from a one to a two. Then the next thing I would look to do is try a two variety of cheeses that have been fermented for a long period of time.

So these are things like age guas, parmesano, reo, aged Pecorino, Romano sharp Cheddars aged manchego. I. Why? Well, as we talked about previously as the, the cheeses age, they actually degrade some of the, uh, opiate peptides, the bacteria or the aging process itself. And then if you have an a two variety and the peptides are further degraded, then there may not be enough of these problematic peptides actually induce, uh, symptoms for you.

So in that circumstance, I’ve had some clients who don’t do well with most dairy products like, Hey, I can do cheese. No problem. And I, and it’s usually specific types of cheese, and I think this may be the reason why. Now, another caveat before we talk about the next tier is amounts of the beta case of Morphin.

Seven may be important, so you may be able to get away with a small amount of it. It’s not really that big of a deal, so you’d be maybe able to moderate the dairy amount per meal as well and switch to a two and find that it’s not that big of a deal. Or you may be able to have a small amount of cheese and it’s not really an issue.

Many people that I work with are fine with small amounts of fermented dairy in their meals. It’s just if they try to make the diet all milk and orange juice, stuff like this, then it’s when it really starts to become a problem. So there’s also the option of lowering and adjusting the amounts and engaging based on your tolerance and kind of going about this in a systematic way.

So maybe you could do, you know, like an ounce or two ounces of cheese with dinner or something and see, does that give you a problem? If it doesn’t, then it’s probably fine. And again, the protein in the dairy, the fats in the dairy, there’s other beneficial peptides in dairy products like cheese, uh, and then, and then the mineral content, the calcium and the potassium, I think are all beneficial.

So if you can tolerate it, of course I would recommend incorporating dairy. I. But if you have problems, these are strategies you can do in the meantime. And then the last step is if all of the Cain is bothering you, whether a two, A one, yogurt, cheeses, et cetera, then what you can look to do is incorporate dairy fats and weight proteins.

’cause the whe fraction does not contain the beta case of morphines, uh, that you find in the casing fraction. So in that sense, you could use whe instead and you won’t get that opiate effect. As an example, myself, I don’t do well with any casing. And I’m also lactose tolerant, which is a very interesting setup, but I can actually tolerate whey protein without much issue.

So I, you incorporate whey in my diet, but I don’t do very well with casing. So that’s something you can do. And you can also incorporate dairy fats, like cream and butter into your diet. ’cause again, the Cain component inside the dairy fats, so actually be quite low, so you’re less likely to actually have symptoms from it.

So in that circumstance, you can look to use the dairy fats instead. The only thing I’d say there, and again, I have other videos about this, so I’ll link them in a description. But if you don’t do well with the hormones in dairy, that may be a reason to be careful with some of the dairy fats. So while Omo morphines are one of the major reasons, as I was just talking about, there are other reasons that you may not tolerate dairy, and I cover these options in another video, which you can check out here.