Reacción a "In women, drinking more than one and a half glasses of milk a day is associated with an increased risk of heart disease"

Study methodology 

“The strengths of the study are the large number of participants, the repeatedly recorded dietary habits and other information over long follow-up periods and the wide range of consumption habits with regard to dairy products. Many established risk factors for cardiovascular disease were also taken into account in the analyses. However, it is striking that people with a very high consumption of non-fermented dairy products tended to have ‘unhealthy’ characteristics, such as a lower level of education or a higher proportion of current smokers. Although the authors controlled for these confounders, residual confounding cannot ultimately be ruled out in observational studies.” 

Classification of the results 

“The increase in risk of high milk consumption only affected women in the study, but not men. This was apparently only noticeable from consumption quantities of over 300 millilitres per day. The higher the consumption volume, the higher the risk: compared to women who drink 100 millilitres of milk per day, women who consumed 400 millilitres had a 5 per cent higher risk, and with 800 millilitres (four glasses) a 21 per cent higher risk. It can therefore not be ruled out that very high milk consumption increases the risk of heart disease in women.” 

Implications of the study data for dietary recommendations 

“Since the risk increase was only observed with very high consumption levels, which are more common in Scandinavia than elsewhere, the results probably do not affect most female consumers in other European countries.”