A study found that milk doesn’t do the body as good as you may have been led to believe. This doesn’t mean you should stop consuming milk. It means you should be aware of current findings about milk, health, and nutrition.
A study called “Milk and Mortality” was published in the British Medical Journal in October of 2014. It used data from two large, long-term Swedish studies of adult men and women. The people in the study were asked about how much and what kinds of milk and dairy products they consumed. The study was led by Uppsala University professor Karl Michaelsson.
The results of the study may surprise some people. Milk is something that many people have been taught is good for them. We know it contains vitamin D. It also contains calcium, something that has been mentioned as important for good, strong, bones.
However, the study found that there was a connection between consuming a certain amount of milk and bone fractures. The study also revealed that there was a connection between consuming milk and mortality. Women who drank three or more glasses of milk a day had a higher risk of fracture and a higher risk of death.
Men who drank three or more glasses of milk a day had a slightly higher risk of death (specifically cardiovascular death). This is compared to women and men who drank less than one glass of milk per day. In other words, drinking more milk didn’t correspond to a reduction of risk of bone fracture.
The researchers analyzed data from the two studies that had to do with a biological marker of stress that was found in some of the participants. They found that, in both men and women, the amount of milk they consumed was associated with higher levels of that biological marker of stress. More specifically, it had to do with oxidative stress, which has been associated with aging, cardiovascular disease, and more.
It appears that the study involved “regular” pasteurized milk that people buy from the grocery store. It didn’t include what is commonly referred to as “raw milk” (which has other health risks involved with it.) The study found that not all milk products are equal. The association between bone fractures and dairy consumption wasn’t seen with cheese, yogurt, sour milk, or other fermented dairy products.
What’s the key idea you should take from this study? The study is not saying that everyone should stop consuming milk. Instead, it is making people aware that the idea that “milk does a body good” is true, but in a much more limited way than most people would assume.
Image by Liz West on Flickr.
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