A cow produces milk naturally after she produces a calf and farmers have been breeding a new generation of calves every year for thousands of years to provide this nutritious food for their families.
With modern biotechnology, nature is being replaced and many developed countries have been using hormones for the last 20 years or so to enhance the level of bovine somatotrophin in dairy cows. This is a natural hormone produced by the pituitary gland of the cow but it has been extracted and purified and the DNA that codes for the hormone has been genetically engineered to be produced by bacteria. This provides huge quantities of the hormone, which is then injected into dairy herds.
The increased level of the hormone improves the efficiency of milk production in the cows and makes them produce more nutrients in the greater quantities of milk. Some people worry about the effect of drinking milk produced by cows that have been treated with hormones but the hormone, if it remained in the milk, would be broken down by the human digestive system. The hormone's effects could not be passed on.
With modern biotechnology, nature is being replaced and many developed countries have been using hormones for the last 20 years or so to enhance the level of bovine somatotrophin in dairy cows. This is a natural hormone produced by the pituitary gland of the cow but it has been extracted and purified and the DNA that codes for the hormone has been genetically engineered to be produced by bacteria. This provides huge quantities of the hormone, which is then injected into dairy herds.
The increased level of the hormone improves the efficiency of milk production in the cows and makes them produce more nutrients in the greater quantities of milk. Some people worry about the effect of drinking milk produced by cows that have been treated with hormones but the hormone, if it remained in the milk, would be broken down by the human digestive system. The hormone's effects could not be passed on.
