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Decoys are commonly used in hunting, politics and warfare. Their attributes are deception and diversion. The finer skills of a decoy are best exemplified in biology where millions of years of evolution have honed the occupation into a highly efficient artform. One example is a molecular decoy in milk that expertly plies its trade of deception and diversion to protect individuals from disease-causing bacteria.

It used to be that the only decision you needed to make at the dairy case was full-fat or low-fat milk. Today, consumers are faced with dozens of alternatives to conventional cow’s milk, including milks free of lactose and “milks” made from soy beans, nuts, rice, and even peas (more about that in future articles). One of the newest alternatives to hit the shelves is A2 milk. It is marketed as an easier-to-digest version of conventional cow’s milk, differing by only one amino acid in one protein chain. But does the change in one protein really change the way A2 milk is digested?

Grab your nearest carton of milk. Find the nutrition label. Under total fat, you’ll likely find information about how much of that fat is saturated, unsaturated, and even trans fatty acids. Under carbohydrates, you’ll learn how much fiber and sugar your milk contains. But there is just one row of information when it comes to protein, giving the false impression that milk protein is not nearly as complex as milk fat or sugar. However, cow milk is made up of two different types of proteins, whey and casein, the majority of which is are caseins. There are four different subtypes of casein proteins, and for each of the four subtypes, there are dozens of different genetic variants. How’s that for complex?

The past few decades have seen a steady rise in the worldwide prevalence of allergic diseases, which has spurred research aimed at figuring out ways to prevent allergies [1]. The first six months of life are thought to offer a window of opportunity for preventing allergies. “Nowadays, most researchers and clinicians are trying to aim at this window of opportunity,” says Professor Daniel Munblit of Imperial College London, Sechenov University, and inVIVO Planetary Health.

Within large populations there are a few people that just happen to be on the lucky side of the bouncing ball of life. Part of this luck is that their unique genetics interacts favorably with local environmental influences and dietary choices, perhaps not the whiskey, and these interactions alter their susceptibility to chronic lifestyle-related diseases. Of course, the opposite is also true as the genetic lottery of life produces winners and losers.

Magnesium is one of the most abundant minerals in the human body and plays a key role in many of the body’s physiological functions. Despite its availability in a wide variety of foods, magnesium is often reported as being consumed at inadequate levels.

Defense wins games. Ask any coach impatiently striding the sidelines. “The defensive line-up must be ever vigilant and able to rapidly neutralize the attacking incursion, which may come from any direction. You cannot wait for help from the cover defense! Any defensive lapse will be ruthlessly exploited by this opposition and all will be lost,” shouts the coach at spent and cowed players as the bell signals the end of their halftime break. Coaches could learn a lot more about defense from biology. An exemplar defensive strategy par excellence is used by mammals, especially dairy cows, where the defensive system is the animal’s immune system, the best in the league, and the opposition threat is microbial infection.

A little over a decade ago, an article appeared in a journal devoted to diabetes research claiming that the disease did not exist among the camel-milking drinking Raica community, a group living in the desert of northwest India, in the state of Rajasthan. The study had surveyed more than 2,000 people. The defining factor in the Raica community’s healthy blood glucose levels appeared to be their camel milk consumption, not genetics, nor a holistically healthy lifestyle.

Back in the 1990s, when she had her first child, Robyn Roche-Paull was an aircraft mechanic in the United States Navy. She knew she wanted to breastfeed as long as possible, but her maternity leave was six weeks long, and then, in theory, she could be deployed to any part of the world. At that time, there was no military policy to facilitate pumping at her workplace, though she persevered. She would pump in the supply closet or the bathroom. “It was very, very difficult. The outlet I needed to plug my pump in was right by the bathroom door, and people would come in an out all the time—so the door was always opening to the hallway, with me standing right there,” she explains.

The first thing that comes to mind when many people think about freezing milk is ice cream. Ice cream, frozen yogurt, and custards are all sweet treats that are notable for their creamy consistency. Yet milk that has been frozen sometimes seems less appealing once it’s brought back to a liquid state. Though some might not prefer milk that has been previously frozen, the ability to freeze and store milk and dairy products can be a safe and economical way to provide beneficial nutrition that people need. Likewise, the ability to keep human milk frozen for one’s own child helps families around the world every day. A common concern about freezing milk—whether produced by human or cow—is whether nutrients are lost in the process. So what, exactly, happens when we freeze milk?

For approximately the past decade, scientists have started to wonder about potential hazards that could be posed to human health from chemicals collectively known as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These chemicals are widespread in the environment globally—they have been used in manufacturing products such as food packaging and textile coatings since the 1950s, and are now detectable in the food chain, and even in dust and dirt. Since these chemicals can accumulate in the body, researchers are studying how they might be passed from mother to infant. This appears to happen to some extent via the placenta and to a lesser extent via human milk. Such findings should not dissuade mothers from breastfeeding, however, because the levels of PFAS in infant formula have sometimes been found to be higher than those of human milk.

Everyone knows that fruit and vegetables are crucial components of a healthy diet, but few have heard of lutein, a substance that is structurally similar to vitamin A and found in spinach and kale. Because the human body cannot make lutein, the amount that one swallows determines how much is available to protect the skin from ultraviolet light, lower the risk of some cancers, and—if relevant—moderate the progression of atherosclerosis. There is also mounting evidence that lutein is important in fetal and infant development. Fetuses and infants receive lutein directly from their mother—via blood that passes through the placenta, and by consuming human milk.

Cow milk evolved to best meet the needs of baby cows, but lucky for human consumers of milk and dairy products, many of those needs cut across species’ boundaries. Take, for example, the numerous anti-inflammatory agents found in cows milk. Although slightly different in degree and type from those found in human milk, several studies demonstrate that these factors, including calcium and the amino acid leucine, influence human markers of inflammation, particularly those related to obesity and the metabolic syndrome. And unlike baby cows, humans need not consume a milk-only diet to reap these benefits—even adding just two servings of dairy a day can have positive effects on inflammation and, by extension, human health.

In boxing, a one-two punch is a combination of two blows delivered in rapid succession. The milk community has recently suffered a one-two punch with the loss of Gregory “Butch” Dias, Jr., California dairy farmer and chairman of the board of the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF) in December, and of Dr. Gonca Pasin the Executive Director of CDRF this month.

There may be nothing more iconically French than the image of a luscious cheese board and bottle of aged red wine. But for those of us living in a hyper-health-conscious culture, constantly bombarded with diet and nutrition trends and fads, it would be difficult to see a wedge of Camembert and glass of Pinot Noir as anything other than an indulgence. And certainly not as a “healthy” choice. Yet decades of research show that a French diet, including a high intake of saturated fat from cheese and alcohol from wine, may lower incidence of mortality from coronary heart disease. Though researchers have long looked to the beneficial properties of antioxidants in red wine to explain this French Paradox, the benefits may actually lie with components in cheese. In particular, a recent study found that a potent intestinal enzyme, alkaline phosphatase, may be stimulated by dairy products to fight cardiovascular disease.

The inevitable decline in humans with age is the ultimate certainty, greatly surpassing that of tides and taxes. Like an aging building reaching into the sky, it’s the foundations that really count. A strong foundation slows the adverse effects of aging and conversely a weak foundation results in foreboding cracks in the brickwork, a portent of future structural failure.

Email, texts, IM, Facebook, Instagram—in the age of social media, there is no shortage of ways to send a message from one person to another. But is mother’s milk the original social network? Many of milk’s ingredients are believed to act as signaling factors that convey a “message” from mother to infant. Over the last decade, researchers have worked on decoding these messages, with a particular focus on the hormone cortisol. Milk cortisol levels are associated with infant growth and infant temperament in rhesus macaques, and hypothesized to send the message to be more cautious and prioritize growth over behavioral activity. A newly published study expands on this hypothesis and tests whether milk cortisol levels during the first weeks of life predict behavior and cognitive performance months later. The results suggest that far from being an instant messenger, milk’s signal may have effects well after it is received.

Bone density decreases with age, leading to an increased risk of hip fractures. Milk is considered helpful for maintaining bone health due to its high calcium, protein, and its fortification with vitamin D, and the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that adults consume two to three cups of milk or equivalent dairy foods per day to protect aging bones.

Breast milk is considered the gold standard for human infant nutrition. But at some point, even “white gold” cannot suffice as the only source of nutrition, and infants must begin to take in complementary foods to support their growth and development. When that point is, however, remains a matter of debate centered largely on the availability of one particular micronutrient—iron.

Diabetes is a major public health problem that affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Diet is known to influence the risk of diabetes, and researchers have been trying to understand how dietary changes could help prevent type 2 diabetes and other cardiometabolic diseases. “My research program has a long history of investigating the relationship between diet and cardiometabolic risk,” says Paul F. Jacques, program director of nutritional epidemiology and senior scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.

As an immunological disease that is usually diagnosed before the age of 40 in about three times as many women as men, multiple sclerosis (MS) affects many individuals who hope to carry a child to term and nurture it thereafter. In the 1950s, experts assumed that pregnancy would be nothing but harmful to these women. Many studies since then have demonstrated that the risk of an MS relapse actually plummets during pregnancy, especially in the third trimester, only to increase again after birth. Recently, a large study in Germany also found that exclusive breastfeeding for at least two months diminishes the odds of relapse for six months after the baby is born. Understanding the immunological changes taking place that mediate these shifting risks may eventually lead to novel treatments.

We all know vitamins are good for us. Some vitamins covet the stage of public awareness and rarely relinquish the limelight. If not consumed in sufficient quantities, they threaten dire health consequences for nonbelievers, children and small noisy dogs. Other vitamins, like vitamin K, are lost in the extrovert vitamin ABCD crowd and struggle to be heard. Their message, however, is equally profound for good health in humans. The paradox is that vitamin deficiency remains for many people a significant health and nutrition issue even in the presence of an abundance of food. Moreover, scientists continue to discover new biological roles of vitamins and new food sources containing different molecular forms of known vitamins, which together cause the regular revision of recommended daily intake levels.

Milk is well known for being the primary dietary source of calcium, but it may be a surprise to learn that, in the U.S. and U.K., milk is also the leading dietary source of iodine. Some of these countries’ consumers are steering away from dairy because of intolerance, allergy, or personal dietary choices. However, researchers have found organic milk and milk-alternative drinks like soy, almond, and hemp milk have only a fraction of the iodine found in conventional milk, indicating that many of those avoiding conventional dairy—especially pregnant and nursing women—may inadvertently be placing themselves at risk for iodine deficiency.

The benefits of breastfeeding are nearly always considered from the perspective of the infant, but breastfeeding also has positive effects on the health of the mother. The hormonal changes associated with lactation may lower the risk of developing many chronic diseases, including breast and ovarian cancer. The results of a new study of over 70,000 women suggest that these same hormonal changes may also lower the risk of developing endometriosis.