{"id":10596,"date":"2026-07-16T13:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/2026\/07\/16\/influencers-versus-research\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:35:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T11:35:47","slug":"influencers-versus-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/2026\/07\/16\/influencers-versus-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Influencers versus research"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Take home message<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Influencers can give a huge boost to a product (raw milk) or a case (start voting). <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Norwegian striker Haaland drinks premium raw milk as part of his personal approach to health.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Research into the health effects of raw milk, as well as how to produce \u2018safe\u2019 raw milk, is barely getting off the ground. Raw milk is not a revenue model for an industry, but for a single farmer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The voice of the influencer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not permitted to make health claims for a product such as milk or kefir. However, you cannot prevent so-called influencers from saying something about a \u2018fantastic\u2019 product. If they have a large following, this can have a significant impact on a product\u2019s sales. As a young person growing up, you look up to idols from the worlds of music or sport. They influence what you do, how you dress and behave, and also what you eat. Footballer, idealist and businessman Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 (France) is emerging as a political activist and has managed to persuade young people from the Parisian suburbs to vote for parties other than the far-right Front National. Two years ago, turnout for the French elections was higher than ever before (NOS website, 14 July 2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A striker drinks raw milk<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Norwegian footballer Erling Haaland drinks raw milk. As the team\u2019s striker, he captures the public\u2019s imagination in many ways. He is tall (195 cm), strong, masculine and is the top scorer for the Norwegian national team and for his club Manchester United (since 2022). Haaland was born in England (2000) to Norwegian parents, but grew up in Norway from the age of 3rd. Haaland drinks raw milk, according to a report in the *Algemeen Dagblad* on Saturday 11 July 2026, as well as unprocessed honey, and he eats meat \u2013 a lot of red meat. In doing so, Haaland is going against all dietary advice to avoid red meat due to environmental concerns and potential cancer risks. Raw milk is a thorn in the side of various European food and consumer authorities, especially when people like Haaland promote it as a \u2018superfood\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"827\" src=\"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AD_Haaland_raw-milk-1024x827.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10591\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AD_Haaland_raw-milk-1024x827.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AD_Haaland_raw-milk-300x242.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AD_Haaland_raw-milk-768x620.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AD_Haaland_raw-milk.jpg 1338w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you search the internet for \u2018Erling Haaland\u2019 and \u2018raw milk\u2019, references to the BBC and Newstalk appear in AI mode. Alongside Haaland\u2019s statements explaining why he sees benefits in raw milk (a whole food with natural fat content, enzymes present, beneficial properties intact, etc.), the discussion regarding the safety aspects of raw milk consumption emerges immediately. The warnings stem from the risk of contamination with zoonotic bacteria. It goes on to state that Haaland buys his raw milk as \u2018premium milk\u2019: \u201cNutritionists point out that Haaland likely has access to strictly controlled, top-quality milk sourced from regularly inspected herds. Consuming cheaper, widely available raw dairy products, where such strict hygiene measures are lacking, significantly increases the safety risk.\u201d Quite apart from whether everything that appears on the internet is, of course, accurate, there are a number of strange statements accompanying this warning. Firstly, raw milk is by no means widely available; as a consumer, you have to travel large distances to be able to drink raw milk at all. In most countries, the authorities are doing their utmost to remove raw milk from the market. Raw milk is much more readily available in the form of raw milk dairy products, such as raw milk kefir and raw milk cheese. Interestingly, the term \u2018premium milk\u2019 is used, which makes it clear that not all raw milk is the same and that you can indeed find raw milk that can be consumed (virtually) without risk. Haaland collected his milk from the \u2018Milk House\u2019, which had been selling raw milk for over 10 years. Sales stopped in February 2026 due to increasingly stringent regulations, which disrupted the continuity of supply. As far as is known, there were no zoonotic issues \u2013 no STEC, Salmonella or Campylobacter. The \u2018Milk House\u2019 farm was affiliated with the RMPA and was subject to supervision by the UK Food Standards Agency. This means, just as with German \u2018Vorzugsmilch\u2019, that regular checks are carried out on the raw milk and that inspections are conducted of the premises and the cows. However, it also means that the regulatory bodies repeatedly come up with reasons that make the production of premium milk or Vorzugsmilch difficult. This is despite the fact that the authorities cannot demonstrate that such milk has actually been responsible for outbreaks of zoonoses among consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The sound of research<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you compare the influencer\u2019s voice with that of the research, the differences are striking. Researchers follow specific protocols to establish the truth. Researchers always leave room for doubt; there are always things you do not know (exactly), which you can investigate further, which need to be examined in greater depth, or which need to be studied in a much larger sample (research group). In short: researchers are cautious, and every study raises new uncertainties. Research takes place at all sorts of levels: cell cultures, in vitro research, animal studies and human trials. You can conduct research in humans using cohorts (population-based studies), but authorities will only really take you seriously if you can demonstrate, through experimental research in humans, that there is a factor which experimentally explains the difference. It\u2019s about substances \u2013 single substances \u2013 rather than whole products. The gold standard for such research is known as a \u2018randomised double-blind study\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The absurdity of accepting only the results of randomised double-blind studies as the truth became apparent about a year ago (mid-2025). The Dutch Health Council had issued a call for a reassessment of dairy products in relation to chronic diseases. The public were invited to submit supporting research themselves, which might have been overlooked. However, this had to be in accordance with their rules: only randomised, human double-blind research is taken into account when considering a change in position on nutrition. Naturally, this would not be based on a single study, but ideally on multiple studies, conducted across different research centres, each carrying out the same procedure. Such research is virtually non-existent, as it is costly, time-consuming and funding for such studies is heavily politically determined. Moreover, it would be strange if the Health Council had overlooked such research, whilst other research findings using different methods were not accepted by the Health Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The requirement to change the stance on raw milk solely on the basis of randomised human trials makes things very difficult for advocates of raw milk. Who would carry out such research, and who would have an interest in it? Much of the knowledge about the effects of raw milk comes from studies of children living on farms. These are known as cohort studies, which are often retrospective as well. In other words, a cross-section of the population is taken and, in this case, the children\u2019s mothers are asked about various past living conditions and dietary habits. Correlations are calculated between the occurrence of a condition (allergy, asthma, hay fever) and how the child lived and ate, the duration of breastfeeding, the number of brothers and sisters, the mother\u2019s eating habits, and so on. This type of research has now been carried out in many countries and has yielded the following insight:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Early consumption of raw milk protects against the development of food allergies, asthma and hay fever; as soon as the child drinks pasteurised farm milk instead of raw milk, that protection is lost; non-farm children who drink raw milk are protected in the same way as farm children. There is even a dose-response relationship: more raw milk provides better protection. It should be noted that such findings relate to a specific time window, namely the age of 0\u20133 years; in fact, the protection actually begins before birth, if the pregnant mother drinks raw milk. Amish farm children showed the best protection. In their case, there are cumulative effects, such as the early consumption of raw cow\u2019s milk, contact with animals (cows, horses), large families and living under primitive agricultural conditions (in terms of machinery, contact with animals, etc.). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For most people, all these studies taken together are enough to \u2018believe\u2019 that raw milk offers protection. After all, in everyday life, it is all about so-called pattern recognition, logical reasoning and ruling out certain factors. However, for the strict natural scientist, this is not sufficient. For them (and also for the Health Council), such epidemiological research is primarily hypothesis-generating, not conclusive. That is why none of the raw milk research has been included in the Health Council\u2019s statement mentioned above. Then there are the studies involving mice (and cells). These include mice that have been made allergic, mice capable of mimicking a food or milk allergy, or mice exhibiting an asthmatic attack. An entire PhD thesis has been devoted to this, demonstrating that the allergenic potential of milk lies in the whey fraction (Abbring, 2019). When milk whey, skimmed milk or whole milk is heated to 80 <sup>o<\/sup>C, the mice exhibit an allergic reaction. The thesis even includes a small, randomised provocation study in which children with milk allergies, without exception, did not react to raw cow\u2019s milk, in contrast to heated, homogenised shop milk (Abbring, Kusche et al., 2019). Further, there is also supporting and explanatory research available. The findings in the mice correspond with those observed in young children and point to the protective effect of the heat-sensitive whey proteins. Furthermore, colleagues in Vienna have, notably drawing on all the epidemiological research, successfully developed a remedy derived from raw milk \u2013 namely the whey protein beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) \u2013 tested among others in asthma patients. This is marketed under the name Immunobon\u00ae. Heated, denatured and uncharged BLG causes problems; charged, intact, non-denatured BLG \u2018heals\u2019, calming the immune system (Roth-Walter et al., 2021). The insights gained regarding BLG \u2013 which is present not only in raw milk but is also aerosolised via urine in the barn environment \u2013 correspond to the denaturation temperatures of BLG (60\u201380 <sup>o<\/sup>C), and problems can arise even at temperatures just above 60 <sup>o<\/sup>C. BLG in whey and urine links the findings of research into raw milk and immunology, as well as the cowshed and the distance to the barn (less than 250\u2013300 m), thereby providing protection for children living on farms. Yet this research and insight fail to reach the Health Council, because it is not derived from randomised double-blind studies, but from ecological or epidemiological research. This is strange, as most decisions in our lives are not based at all on randomised and double-blind evidence, but on logical thinking and pattern recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If one is willing to do so, one can bring the various findings (farm children, mice, young children and unheated whey proteins) together and conclude that there is, after all, at least something unusual and unexpected at play due to the consumption of raw milk, and that a major social problem, namely a false start in terms of immunology, which, moreover, costs billions in treatments for asthma and allergies and causes suffering among patients, can be reduced quite easily (Baars et al., 2021). Such views are apparently being picked up by influencers. And of course, this milk must be of premium quality, just as Haaland buys it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Literature<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Abbring, S. (2019). The potential of raw cow&#8217;s milk to target allergic diseases: &#8216;Well done, medium or rare?\u2019. PhD-Thesis Uni Utrecht.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Abbring, S., Kusche, D., Roos, T. C., Diks, M. A., Hols, G., Garssen, J., Baars, T. &amp; van Esch, B. C. (2019). Milk processing increases the allergenicity of cow\u2019s milk\u2014Preclinical evidence supported by a human proof\u2010of\u2010concept provocation pilot. <em>Clinical &amp; Experimental Allergy<\/em>, <em>49<\/em>(7), 1013-1025.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Baars, T., Wold, A., Vuitton, D. A., Garssen, J., &amp; Berge, A. C. (2021). Raw cow milk consumption and the atopic march. <em>Frontiers in pediatrics<\/em>, <em>9<\/em>, 613906.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Roth-Walter, F., Afify, S. M., Pacios, L. F., Blokhuis, B. R., Redegeld, F., Regner, A., &#8230; &amp; Jensen-Jarolim, E. (2021). Cow\u2019s milk protein \u03b2-lactoglobulin confers resilience against allergy by targeting complexed iron into immune cells. <em>Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology<\/em>, <em>147<\/em>(1), 321-334.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take home message The voice of the influencer It is not permitted to make health claims for a product such as milk or kefir. However, you cannot prevent so-called influencers from saying something about a \u2018fantastic\u2019 product. If they have &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[226,225],"tags":[348,298],"class_list":["post-10596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asthma-and-allergy","category-health","tag-raw-milk","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10601,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10596\/revisions\/10601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.milkandhealth.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}