Brain disease can be caused by a variety of factors such as the accumulation of heavy metals in the brain, alcoholism, faulty genes, malnutrition, and even lifestyle factors. But a new discovery shows that UHT milk (also known as Long Life milk) is one of the biggest dietary causes of brain disease.

It has been estimated that the diet (i.e. what goes into your mouth) is responsible for most brain disease. Genes and smoking are also responsible for brain disease, but to a smaller extent.

Here we are talking about serious neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and Huntington's Disease. All these diseases have one thing in common: they are all mainly caused by damaged proteins.

What happens is that damaged proteins accumulate in the brain over time and cause brain disease. This is supported by virtually all the scientific research into this subject, and there are many published studies that support this view.

How does UHT milk come into the picture? Up until recently few people realized that UHT milk is particularly high in damaged proteins. Even fewer people realized an astonishing fact: that as a consequence, UHT milk is one of the biggest dietary causes of brain disease.

This hasn't been noticed before because it can take many years for brain disease to develop, and the big growth in UHT milk sales is a recent development.

UHT milk is not the same as regular pasteurized milk. It has a different molecular structure. UHT milk is pasteurized at twice the temperature of regular milk (and about 57 percent higher the homogenization pressure). This drastically changes the fundamental nature of milk, making it very high in damaged proteins.

In the USA and Canada about 10 percent of all milk sold is UHT, but the market for UHT is growing rapidly. About 80 percent of all organic milk sold in the USA and Canada is UHT. In many other countries such as Belgium, France and Spain virtually all types of milk are UHT.