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As a kid, I recall being made to drink a glass of milk at each meal to get calcium and help develop stronger bones. Alas, that adage about milk building healthy bones may be far from the truth, particularly for adults. New research suggests that milk drinking actually weakens the health of your bones.
The study, conducted out of Uppsala University in Sweden, examined the dietary habits of more than 100,000 adults for a span of 10 to 20 years. Surprisingly, those who reported drinking the most milk actually broke their bones the most, running contrary to conventional wisdom.
For lead researcher Dr. Karl Michaelsson, the results mimic what he’s noticed anecdotally throughout his professional career. “I’ve looked at fractures during the last 25 years. I’ve been puzzled by the question because there has again and again been a tendency of a higher risk of fracture with a higher intake of milk,” said Michaelsson.
That’s not the only reason to back away from cow juice – frequent milk consumers were also at a higher risk for dying. According to the data, adult milk drinkers are twice as likely to die prematurely. Breaking down the figures further, milk chuggers are 44% more likely to get cancer and doubles the rate of heart disease. These risks are not nearly as bad for adults who limit themselves to a single glass.
To be fair, the study cannot conclude that milk causes weaker bones (or kill you for that matter) — it just shows a significant association between drinking milk and having brittle bones. However, this study is hardly the first one to make this connection with milk consumption. Last year, Care2 rounded up dozens of statistics that show why milk is not nearly as healthy as the dairy industry might want you to believe.
Don’t let this news keep you away from dairy altogether, though – a correlation between poorer bone health and people who regularly eat cheese and yogurt was not discovered. Researchers aren’t sure why that occurs, but they suspect it could have something to do with D-galactose, a specific sugar found in milk.
If you do want to ween yourself off of cow’s milk, there are other sources of calcium, namely leafy greens like kale and broccoli. Unfortunately, you’ll have to eat a lot of them to get the calcium punch that a single glass of milk offers. Moreover, getting kids to eat these greens is usually a harder sell than it is to get them to chow down on a bowl of cereal.
So is it time to give up on milk altogether? If that seems like an awful prospect, the solution may be — as it is with nearly anything — to approach milk drinking in moderation. Since the worst problems connected to drinking milk pertain to people who drink three or more glasses per day, limiting your milk intake to a few times a week seems like a good compromise until more solid research emerges.
As a kid, I recall being made to drink a glass of milk at each meal to get calcium and help develop stronger bones. Alas, that adage about milk building healthy bones may be far from the truth, particularly for adults. New research suggests that milk drinking actually weakens the health of your bones.
The study, conducted out of Uppsala University in Sweden, examined the dietary habits of more than 100,000 adults for a span of 10 to 20 years. Surprisingly, those who reported drinking the most milk actually broke their bones the most, running contrary to conventional wisdom.
For lead researcher Dr. Karl Michaelsson, the results mimic what he’s noticed anecdotally throughout his professional career. “I’ve looked at fractures during the last 25 years. I’ve been puzzled by the question because there has again and again been a tendency of a higher risk of fracture with a higher intake of milk,” said Michaelsson.
That’s not the only reason to back away from cow juice – frequent milk consumers were also at a higher risk for dying. According to the data, adult milk drinkers are twice as likely to die prematurely. Breaking down the figures further, milk chuggers are 44% more likely to get cancer and doubles the rate of heart disease. These risks are not nearly as bad for adults who limit themselves to a single glass.
To be fair, the study cannot conclude that milk causes weaker bones (or kill you for that matter) — it just shows a significant association between drinking milk and having brittle bones. However, this study is hardly the first one to make this connection with milk consumption. Last year, Care2 rounded up dozens of statistics that show why milk is not nearly as healthy as the dairy industry might want you to believe.
Don’t let this news keep you away from dairy altogether, though – a correlation between poorer bone health and people who regularly eat cheese and yogurt was not discovered. Researchers aren’t sure why that occurs, but they suspect it could have something to do with D-galactose, a specific sugar found in milk.
If you do want to ween yourself off of cow’s milk, there are other sources of calcium, namely leafy greens like kale and broccoli. Unfortunately, you’ll have to eat a lot of them to get the calcium punch that a single glass of milk offers. Moreover, getting kids to eat these greens is usually a harder sell than it is to get them to chow down on a bowl of cereal.
So is it time to give up on milk altogether? If that seems like an awful prospect, the solution may be — as it is with nearly anything — to approach milk drinking in moderation. Since the worst problems connected to drinking milk pertain to people who drink three or more glasses per day, limiting your milk intake to a few times a week seems like a good compromise until more solid research emerges.
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