Milk used to be considered a "perfect food"--indeed it is very nutritious. In recent years, however, "cow's milk is for calves" has become a rallying cry for several groups, which claim that milk is nothing less than a "deadly poison." If you believe these groups, milk is behind nearly all our major diseases. Here are some of the claims being made about milk and dairy products and the facts.
Claim: Dairy products increase the risk of heart disease.
Facts: If you consume lots of whole milk and cheese, you're likely to raise your blood cholesterol levels. That's true, however, of any foods rich in saturated fat and cholesterol. Milk's opponents talk as if all milk is still whole milk. But more and more dairy products these days are nonfat or low-fat, and thus do not raise cholesterol levels significantly. In fact, there's some evidence that certain substances in milk may help lower cholesterol somewhat. (However, with whole milk, this effect is probably overwhelmed by the cholesterol-boosting effect of the fat.) And since milk is rich in calcium and magnesium, it can help reduce the risk of hypertension.
Milk opponents often quote a paper in Alternative Medicine Review that indicted milk, even nonfat milk, as a cause of heart disease. But that article was simplistic and misleading. It found an association between milk consumption and heart disease in population studies from 32 countries, but the data did not allow the researcher to take into consideration many of the other factors that can affect the risk of heart disease. Nor do the data specify what kind of milk (full-fat vs. lower-fat) was consumed in the various countries.
Claim: Dairy products increase the risk of ovarian cancer.
Facts: A few studies have suggested that there's a link between lactose (milk sugar) and/or galactose (a related sugar) and ovarian cancer, while others have found no connection. However, a well-done study in the American Journal of Epidemiology refuted this claim. It found that women with ovarian cancer had consumed less, not more, of these milk sugars than healthy women.
