Since we were kids, our parents would talk to us about the benefits of milk, including the positive effect that it may have on our bones and teeth.
However, a shocking new study has reportedly found that there is a connection between consumption of dairy products and health problems that debunk our beliefs about the benefits of milk.
"Our results may question the validity of recommendations to consume high amounts of milk to prevent fragility fractures," stated lead author Professor Karl Michaelsson of Uppsala University in Sweden, according to the media outlet Diabetes Insider.
Michaelsson added, "A higher consumption of milk in women and men is not accompanied by a lower risk of fracture and instead may be associated with a higher risk of death."
For the study, which was published in the British Medical Journal, researchers reportedly used data from two large, long-term Swedish studies of adult men and women, which asked about their dietary habits, including how much and what types of milk and dairy products they consumed, according to The Washington Post.
Women who consumed three or more glasses of milk a day reportedly had a high risk of fracture and a higher risk of death while men who drank three or more glasses of milk a day had a slightly higher risk of death compared to those who drank less than one glass a day.
In both men and women, the amount of milk they consumed was reportedly also associated with higher levels of a biological stress marker, oxidative stress, which has been associated with aging, cancer and cardiovascular disease. Other studies have reportedly observed a similar relationship between the consumption of calcium-rich milk and bone fractures.
Despite these results, this specific association was reportedly not seen with other dairy products that contain milk, including cheese, yogurt, sour milk and other fermented products. According to Michaelsson, the results of the study reportedly suggests that more research is needed to understand whether a specific component of milk called D-galactose might play a role in the findings.
"Until very very recently, from an evolutionary perspective, humans would have consumed no milk products at all and would have consumed calcium from other sources," stated David Ludwig, a Harvard professor of nutrition.
He continued, "Populations that drink no milk at all have perfectly fine bones. Which isn't to say that milk is necessarily unhelpful, we just lack a good evidence base for the recommendation that we consume such high levels of it."
