Drinking lots of milk and increasing your calcium intake may lower the risk of colorectal cancer, according to a new study that appears in the July 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Colorectal cancer is a disease resulting from mutations in epithelial cells of the gastrointestinal tract. Most of the known abnormalities involve the DNA which regulates cell growth. Though many of these effects are well known, there are likely environmental, hereditary, and viral causes for specific cell defects. Because the changes at the cell level may take years to develop into cancer, it is generally impossible to track the cause of specific cases of cancer. Thus efforts at prevention mostly focus on avoiding or identifying risk factors and early detection.
It is the third most common form of cancer and the second leading cause of death among cancers in the United States.
To better assess the relationship between consumption of dairy foods, calcium intake, and colorectal cancer risk, Eunyoung Cho, Sc.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues conducted a pooled analysis of 10 cohort studies from five countries. The studies included more than half a million individuals, among whom nearly 5,000 individuals were diagnosed with colorectal cancer during follow-up.