There have been several recent news stories surrounding the consumption of milk. Some of these claim that milk could be harmful to your health due to it causing various issues such as inflammation, auto immune disease and type 1 diabetes, and that it may also contain allergenic proteins such as casein, which can become a problem for some people, and especially cow dairy, namely unpasteurized milk should be avoided. Therefore dairy should not be a dietary staple. Yet other stories claim that the belief that milk is essential for bone health as it is rich in calcium is a myth, and that in fact milk increases calcium loss from bones. These unsupported claims say that decades of credible research on one of the most nutritious drinks in the world should be re-evaluated.
It is extremely concerning that such exaggerated claims may cause serious impacts on people’s food choices and bring about significant and potentially serious health consequences. It can cause harm to the general nutrition of an individual and reduce the quality of his or her diet. It has also been well established that avoiding dairy can cause reduced bone mass and can increase fragility fractures. Low dairy intake can also be responsible for overweight risk especially in children. Instead of taking away foods such as dairy which provide important nutrient value, simply on the basis of unsupported claims and studies, it is vital to increase our dairy nutrition intake.
One of the latest studies which was carried out by Swedish researchers and appeared in the British Medical Journal, stated that milk was a cause of negative health risks. But yet just one observational study cannot prove for sure that milk is the sole cause of all these risks, it can only show a potential association. It also must be noted that the researchers themselves mention that the findings should be interpreted cautiously.
Due to this it is much wiser to base one’s health and nutrient choices on sound science instead of news headlines. Furthermore there are hundreds more studies supporting the addition of dairy in diets. All that needs to be kept in mind is that milk is the top source of calcium and vitamin D, it includes 9 nutrients essential to the human body which includes high quality protein and without the inclusion of milk in diets nutrients that we need would be hard to get. Therefore there really is no need to change a diet because of a few negative claims about dairy.