‘The Milk and Cookie Disease’ Epidemic: How Much Candy Is Your Child Drinking?

By Everyday Health Guest Columnist

Published May 2, 2014

By Julie L. Wei, MD, Special to Everyday Health
As an Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) surgeon who sees up to 30 kids per day, I’m all too familiar with the illnesses that affect our children. So much so, that I’ve come up with a new name for such childhood maladies — Milk and Cookie Disease (MCD).
MCD consists of ear, nose, and throat complaints that mimic actual infections and illness as a result of sugar and dairy consumption before bedtime.

A Sugary Scourge: Sinus Symptoms

When my family moved to Orlando last June after 10 wonderful years in Kansas City, I was unsure of the prevalence of Milk and Cookie Disease in Florida. In addition to enjoying a busy surgery practice, I had had the pleasure of helping Kansas and Missouri children and families end their chronic suffering from cough, runny nose, stuffy nose, recurrent croup, sinus infections, breathing difficulties, sore throats, and other problems. I was determined to continue my practice in Orlando and Central Florida.
Thousands of children have these sinus symptoms in the absence of fever or positive strep tests, and are still able to go to school even though they are “sick.”  I have met and treated countless children who, despite seeing many specialists and being treated with numerous nasal steroid sprays, allergy medications, inhalers, and other medications, are still somehow unable to completely get rid of their chronic symptoms — the essence of Milk and Cookie Disease.
So it is bittersweet for me to report that MCD is alive and well here in Florida. I am confident that it is prevalent across our nation and probably affecting almost every child. Why? Because so many of our children are not only addicted to sugar, but are also drinking their weight in sugar! Literally!

You Are What You Drink – and Eat – at Bedtime

For several years I have been telling families that drinking milk before bed is REALLY bad for a child or anyone after 12 months of age. Why? Imagine milk sitting at 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit for a few hours, mixed with some stomach acid.  It will probably curdle and form yogurt-like clumps, and it can reflux back up to the child’s throat.  Drinking milk with sugary snacks is a common evening and bedtime routine for American children.
I have spent years observing that when kids stop consuming sugar and dairy in the evenings and before bed, many are completely “cured” of their ENT symptoms. Even if they are not cured, at least it makes it clear to someone like me what their real medical problems may be.
My goal is to increase parents’ awareness that late-night dairy and sugar are also the probable culprits in their kids’ indigestion. Along with ENT and digestive problems, excessive sugar intake leads to obesity, followed by high blood pressure, and even diabetes.

Adding Up the Sugar Totals

I believe MCD is a crisis, a serious epidemic facing our children.  Once I started asking parents about their children’s diets the problem became clear. So many children are eating and drinking more sugar than most of us would deem healthy. I asked parents to fill out a questionnaire about it:
What does your child consume throughout the day on most days?  Check all that apply:

• Danimal or some type of yogurt drink
• Go-gurt
• Cheese “stick”
• Apple juice
• Lemonade
• Sweet tea
• Soda
• Orange juice and any other juice
• Gatorade
• Capri-Sun

Now repeat for what they get at daycare or in preschool…
Every day, in almost every clinic appointment, I check the above list and then I add up the items to get the approximate number of grams of added sugar a child is consuming in a given day.
Many of the children I meet eat and drink between 150 to 200 grams of added sugar a day, and that’s only counting juices and flavored milk! The human digestive system was never meant to process so much sugar, which means that your child’s stomach needs even more time to get this stuff out of the stomach into the intestines.  So while that fermenting sugar and processed liquid sits around in the stomach (and gets more rancid with each passing moment) it can come back up and cause symptoms that can mislead doctors into treating asthma, allergies, or whatever else we think may be wrong.

The Sugar-Water Diet

Every child in America is at risk because they’re unknowingly consuming a ridiculous and eventually life-threatening amount of sugar every day in “innocent” liquids that are pretty much just sugar water  –   juice boxes, pouches, lemonade, sodas, and fortified “water.”
Every day I meet parents who tell me that their 3, 5, 8, or 12 year old “won’t drink water” or will not eat “fruits and vegetables.”  This generation of parents has lost to the food industry and stopped being in charge of their child’s eating and drinking habits. Every day I tell families, “If your child won’t drink water now, he or she will probably not drink water over sugary drinks for the next 90 years…”
Moving and exercising is important, but let’s be clear. No child can move faster and exercise enough to burn all the calories consumed by guzzling these sugary drinks (see my chart below). Until the government and FDA step in and regulate conveniently packaged, highly processed drinks with falsely reassuring labels like “No Sugar Added,” and “100% juice,”  our only choice is to tell every parent to boycott and stop this epidemic, and teach our children to make better choices.

Make Better Choices

We are all too busy to think about how much added sugar our children are drinking every day, but this is what we MUST get busy thinking about.  Save a child. Model and encourage good eating and drinking behavior. Take your kids to the grocery store and look at the food labels together to choose items lower in sugar whenever possible. Cook at home. Eat well. And please, drink nature’s perfect drink: water.
I’m pleased to report that I’ve shared my career epiphany with countless families who are implementing these suggestions, and many have seen their children recover into the healthy bodies they were born with and minimize chronic medication use. Less time spent seeing doctors is more time for fun, learning, and living a fulfilled and great life.
Nutrition IS the only comprehensive solution, and when partnered with appropriately prescribed medications and surgeries, is what America needs – and we needed it yesterday. Help your children be healthy, today and every day, by reducing their liquid sugar intake, avoiding milk and cookies before bedtime, and working on living A Healthier Wei.