Dairy milk is singled out as the biggest dietary cause of osteoporosis because more than any other food it depletes the finite reserve of bone-making cells in the body.
So although milk makes bones stronger in the short term, in the long term it erodes bone-making cells, increasing the risk of osteoporosis. This explains a paradox: black people are known to be less tolerant to lactose in milk, and consequently they drink less milk, yet they get much less osteoporosis than white people. This new research resolves the paradox because by consuming less milk you are less likely to get osteoporosis.
Growing evidence is showing that calcium in milk does not protect against osteoporosis. For example in a 12-year Harvard study of 78,000 women, those who drank milk three times a day actually broke more bones than women who rarely drank milk. Similarly, a 1994 study in Sydney, Australia, showed that higher dairy product consumption was associated with increased fracture risk: those with the highest dairy consumption had double the risk of hip fracture compared to those with the lowest consumption.
Author Russell Eaton says: 'Dairy milk does increase bone density, but this comes at a terrible price. The latest research is showing that far from protecting bones, milk actually increases the risk of osteoporosis by eroding bone-making cells. Also, people with osteoporosis have a much higher incidence of heart disease and cancer, and the evidence is pointing at milk as the common factor. '
It had been thought that prostate cancer was caused by harmful fats in the diet, but this may not be so. Calcium and phosphorus in milk serve to feed nanobacteria, causing calcification and cancer.