I added some info to, and made a correction in, my original post:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Philip Terry [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 10:36 AM
> To: 'Paleolithic Eating Support List'
> Subject: RE: FBG Confusion
> 
> Todd Moody
> > metabolic effects of our diet.  I know that I was surprised to learn
> > that Owsley "Bear" Stanley's FBG is 99 after 40+ years of a
> > meat-only diet.
> 
> Don't forget the cheese. Because cheese is reportedly a staple food of
> Stanley's diet (consisting mainly of meat, eggs and cheese), I'm not
> surprised at all that his FBG is high.
> 
> Milk has a "high insulinemic response" [abnormally high spike in the
concentration of insulin in the blood] according to Cordain and others.
> Results of a study by Hoyt, Hickey and Cordain "suggest that some
> factor within the protein fraction was responsible for milk’s
> insulinotropic effect [stimulating the production and activity of
insulin]." [Hoyt G, Hickey MS, Cordain L. Dissociation of
> the glycaemic and insulinaemic responses to whole and skimmed milk. Br
> J Nutr 2005;93:175-177.
> http://www.thepaleodiet.com/published_research/]
> 
> http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/106/4/719]

> A Swedish [actually, Icelandic] study found that casein may be the main
culprit in the
> protein fraction of milk. [Inga Thorsdottir, PhD, et al. Different -
> Casein Fractions in Icelandic Versus Scandinavian Cow's Milk May
> Influence Diabetogenicity of Cow's Milk in Infancy and Explain Low
> Incidence of Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus in Iceland. PEDIATRICS
> Vol. 106 No. 4 October 2000, pp. 719-724. 

More specifically, the study's authors identified the A1 variant of casein
as the main culprit: "The A1 variant of -casein has been shown to be
diabetogenic in animal studies...."

> Casein is the main protein in most cheeses
> [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casein].
> 
> And for those who think that fermented dairy products may be healthy (a
> la Weston A. Price Foundation), Ostman et al found that fermented dairy
> products also "produced high insulinemic indexes of 90-98, which were
> not significantly different from the insulinemic index of the reference
> [processed, white wheat] bread." [Elin M Östman et al, Inconsistency
> between glycemic and insulinemic responses to regular and fermented
> milk products, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 74, No. 1,
> 96-100, July 2001. http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/74/1/96]
> 
> So negative health effects have been linked to the lactose, whey
> protein, casein protein, betacellulin (found in fat globules in the
> whey fraction) and other growth factors, and who knows what else, in
> both unfermented and fermented dairy products. It may be that the only
> thing that's healthy for humans in dairy products is water.

Todd Moody asked:
> How would the relatively high insulin index of cheese push FBG up?

That's a good question, Todd. The Icelandic study said the mechanism behind
the development of diabetes from A1-casein dairy products is unknown:

	"The mechanism behind the putative diabetogenicity of A1 and B
-caseins is not fully known. The peptide BCM, produced in digestion of A1
and B -caseins, behaves like an opioid receptor ligand and is absorbed
through the gastrointestinal mucosa.28 BCM has been shown to be inhibitory
to immune cell function in NOD mice and prediabetic humans but not in Swiss
mice or normal humans.15 A sequence homology between -casein and several
-cell molecules has also been suggested as an immune response trigger.19"
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/106/4/719

In the short term the insulin spikes caused by casein would of course
depress blood sugar. My guess is that over time the body responds by
developing resistance to these repeated insulin spikes, thus leading to the
clinical condition of insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes) with its
associated chronically high blood sugar. Do you have any thoughts on the
possible mechanism?