Does Milk Really Help Bones?
There is much debate over whether long–term consumption of dairy products helps bones at all. A good deal of evidence suggests that it does not. Several studies of teenagers have found that their adult bone health is related to their physical activity level earlier in life, but not to the amount of milk or calcium they consumed.1,2 Milk consumption is apparently no help later in life either. In an 18–year Harvard study of more than 72,000 women, neither milk nor a high–calcium diet appeared to reduce risk of hip fracture.16 Similarly, a 1994 study of elderly men and women in Sydney, Australia, showed that those who consumed the most dairy products had double the hip fracture rate of those who consumed the least.17 These findings indicate that despite the amount of calcium in dairy products, other dairy compounds accelerate calcium loss. Animal proteins and salt are two likely suspects. To make matters worse, in North America, dairy products are often consumed by people who already have
