Ladies, Put Down That Glass Of Milk And Back Away Slowly...

I am deeply skeptical but here we go, from LiveScience:

3 Servings of Milk a Day Linked to Higher Mortality in Women

Drinking three or more glasses of milk per day may be harmful to women's health, a new study suggests.

Women in the study who downed at least three glasses of milk a daywere nearly twice as likely to die over the next 20 years compared with their peers who drank less than a glass daily, researchers in Sweden found. In addition, the study found that women's risk of bone fracture climbed steadily as their milk intake increased.

The culprit could be galactose, a simple sugar found in milk, said Karl Michaelsson, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden and one of the study's authors. "That compound might induce oxidative stress andlow-grade inflammation, and that type of inflammation can affect mortality and fractures," Michaelsson told Live Science. "The funny thing is that if you provide galactose to experimental animals, they will die faster by induction of oxidative stress and inflammation."

Galactose?!? I thought the Fantastic Four had settled that... oh, never mind.

The Telegraph includes an interesting caveat:

British experts said the research should be treated with caution because the milk in Sweden is fortified with vitamin A which could have an impact on the findings.

Back to LiveScience:

Among the men, who were followed for an average of about 11 years, there was no association between mortality or fractures and milk consumption, according to the findings, which are published today (Oct. 28) in the journal The BMJ.

But dairy lovers need not despair. The researchers found that fermented milk products, like cheese and yogurt — which contain little or no galactose — had the opposite effect: Women who ate or drank the most fermented milk products were less likely to die or sustain fractures during the study. Women's mortality and hip-fracture risk declined by 10 to 15 percent with each daily serving, the study found.

That does lend support to the lactose/galactose idea. But riddle me this - if unfermented milk is so problematic, how is it that lactose tolerance was such a successful genetic trait back at the dawn of agriculture?

FWIW, here is a Nov 2004 study that seems to have relied on a simlar data set and which found an increased risk of ovarian cancer among milk drinkers.

Am J Clin Nutr 2004 Nov;80(5):1353-7.

 

Milk and lactose intakes and ovarian cancer risk in the Swedish Mammography Cohort

 

Larsson SC1, Bergkvist L, Wolk A.

 

Abstract

 

BACKGROUND: High intakes of dairy products and of the milk sugar lactose have been hypothesized to increase ovarian cancer risk, but prospective data are scarce.

 

OBJECTIVE: We examined the association between intakes of dairy products and lactose and the risk of total epithelial ovarian cancer and its subtypes.

 

DESIGN: This was a prospective population-based cohort study of 61 084 women aged 38-76 y who were enrolled in the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Diet was assessed in 1987-1990 with the use of a self-administered food-frequency questionnaire. During an average follow-up of 13.5 y, 266 women were diagnosed with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer; 125 of those women had serous ovarian cancer.

 

RESULTS: 

After adjustment for potential confounders, women who consumed >/=4 servings of total dairy products/d had a risk of serous ovarian cancer (rate ratio: 2.0; 95% CI: 1.1, 3.7; P for trend = 0.06) twice that of women who consumed <2 servings/d. No significant association was found for other subtypes of ovarian cancer. Milk was the dairy product with the strongest positive association with serous ovarian cancer (rate ratio comparing consuming >/=2 glasses milk/d with consuming milk never or seldom: 2.0; 95% CI: 1.1, 3.7; P for trend = 0.04). We observed a positive association between lactose intake and serous ovarian cancer risk (P for trend = 0.006).

 

CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that high intakes of lactose and dairy products, particularly milk, are associated with an increased risk of serous ovarian cancer but not of other subtypes of ovarian cancer. Future studies should consider ovarian cancer subtypes separately.

 

 

Comments

[Stephanie accidentally OnT?]

First!

[kave]

How many women have increased their intake of milk to up their calcium levels to ward off osteoporosis? Oh and First?

[kave]

Dang! missed it by that.much.

[James D.]

How many women have increased their intake of milk to up their calcium levels to ward off osteoporosis?

You aren't implying that the science might not be settled, are you?

[kave]

YUP!

[Captain Hate]

Oh this is a boring thread. How 'bout some classic crock gossip:

http://www.uncut.co.uk/neil-young-on-david-crosby-if-you-make-a-mistake-you-have-to-fix-it-right-away-news#LK0t0PFUiW0qCtUT.99

[henry]

Cows are part of the patriarchy.

[glasater]

Had a female doctor tell me to up my milk intake a few years ago and I said I enjoyed good cheese with a glass of wine..did that count? She laughed at me.

I fired her!

[narciso]

those numbers seem well within the margin of error, so what is the problem?

[NKreBootDeux]

Open Borders-- CBS unintentionally proves that the hardcore open borders crowd in the USA is under 20%. Ebola quarantine and defense of the Border is a winning issue for conservatives. If we keep pushing back against the hardcore Progs and the Chamber of Comm, we'll win.http://hotair.com/archives/2014/10/29/cbs-poll-80-back-quarantines-for-ebola/

[narciso]

so milk is a free radical, winning the future!!

[Bart Simpson]

Don't Have A Cow, Man!

[Frau Dickmilch]

How about chocolate milk?

[hrtshpdbox]

Re Cap'n Hate's Neil Young article - it's too bad that a guy who endorsed Reagan (twice) is now so misguided that he's concerned about the size of the U.S. military's "environmental footprint as compared to that of ISIS'. The real gossip about Neil, not mentioned in that article, is that he's left his long-time wife for Daryl Hannah (who is kinda nutso herself).

[Danube on iPad]

Neil Young has always been an ignoramus and an asshole. Nothing has changed.

[Stephanie accidentally OnT?]

Meh. A southern man don't need him around anyhow.

[Eric in Boise]

I'd milk this subject for a cheap laugh, but I lactose skills.

[kave]

So "Milk does(n't) do a body good? And have we milked this topic long enough?

[henry]

Its an udder disaster.

[Danube on iPad]

First week of 1994 we were spending our honeymoon at the Mauba Kea on the Big Island. There no TVs in the room; there's one TV and a sofa in a room down in the basement. I go down there to watch the Vikings-Giants playoff game, and a few minutes later in walks Neil, who sits down at the other end of the couch. I nodded politely to him when he entered the room, but he made no scknowledgement of my presence then or at any time during the game. I had read that he was a Vikings fan, so starting in the second half every time the Giants made a play I would quietly hiss "yesss!"

Giants wom.

[RickB]

STOP! THIEF!

Gardner and the GOP's preemptive move in Colorado matches that of Ernst in Iowa.

Hit 'em early and hit 'em hard.

[Stephanie accidentally OnT?]

newer thread

[Porchlight]

LOL, DoT. I say that as a Vikings fan and as a major fan of Neil Young's music. He is otherwise totally uninteresting to me.

[Thomas Collins]

My conclusion from all these studies reported in the popular press is that, except for repeated unprotected anal sex with people using needles and exhibiting sores, and gulping enormous quantities of unrefined sugar, everything shortens your life, everything lengthens your life, and everything doesn't affect lifespan. As to the first two, those seem to be things to be avoided (although getting one's sugar intake with Snickers bars, scotch and red wine surely must be beneficial).

[Dave (in MA)]

I've always been a pretty big Neil Young fan, and whenever he hooks up with the semi-Muzak CSN bunch I think it's subtraction by addition. Every once in a while, though, he seems to go off his rocker. His BDS album "Living With War" and his latest couple of albums come to mind, not to mention suddenly dumping his wife of 36 years after writing glowingly about her in his book a year or two back.

Plus his "Pono" high resolution audio project... I'm supposed to believe that a 68 year old guy who's spent 45 years standing in front of the sonic assault of Crazy Horse has ears that can discern high quality sound? And then he releases an album recorded in a '40s direct-to-shellac recording booth?

[Laura White]

You know, TM, you and Glenn Reynolds share this unholy absorption in living forever. It is to be discouraged. Read Tennyson's "Tithonus."

[Laura White]

Also, I have adored many things about Neil, through the years, beginning with "The Damage Done," but he's now the damage. Is very sad.

[春藥王]

So can not drink milk, yogurt change?