Paradoxically, countries with the highest intakes of milk and calcium tend to have the highest rates of hip fractures
Calcium has long been known to be essential for bone health. Ask a teen what food they associate with calcium; they will likely respond with ‘dairy’.
Dairy has become almost synonymous with calcium in recent decades, largely due to clever marketing on behalf of the dairy industry. By ignoring hundreds of other, natural sources of dietary calcium, they were able to establish dairy, almost as a human requirement in the eyes of a misled public. Indeed, many generations have been raised on a mother cow’s lactations, believing it will be essential for their bone health.
However, the evidence simply does not bear this out.
“A central rationale for high lifelong milk consumption has been to meet calcium requirements for bone health. Paradoxically, countries with the highest intakes of milk and calcium tend to have the highest rates of hip fractures (Fig. 1).[1,2] Although this correlation may not be causal and might be due to confounding by factors such as vitamin D status and ethnicity, low dairy consumption is clearly compatible with low rates of hip fracture.”
“Because milk increases attained height, and taller height is strongly related to fractures of the hip and other bones [24]. High milk consumption during adolescence was examined in relation to the risk of hip fractures later in life in two large cohorts [4]. Among men, milk intake during adolescence was linearly associated with a 9% greater risk of hip fracture later in life for every additional glass consumed per day. No association with the risk of hip fracture was seen among women. Thus, existing data do not support high intakes of milk during adolescence for prevention of fractures later in life and suggest that such intakes may contribute to the high incidence of fractures in countries with the greatest milk consumption.”
“The overall evidence does not support a benefit of higher dairy consumption for prevention of hip fractures. “
Excerpts from “Milk and Health” – Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr.P.H., and David S. Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D. New England Journal of Medicine.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1903547
- Hegsted DM. Calcium and osteoporosis. J Nutr 1986; 116: 2316-9
- Hegsted DM. Fractures, calcium, and the modern diet. Am J Clin Nutr 2001; 74: 571-3
- Hemenway D, Azrael DR, Rimm EB, Feskanich D, Willett WC. Risk factors for hip fracture in US men aged 40 through 75 years. Am J Public Health 1994; 84: 1843-5.
- Feskanich D, Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Frazier AL, Willett WC. Milk consumption during teenage years and risk of hip fractures in older adults. JAMA Pediatr 2014; 168: 54-60.
