Shock study: drinking more milk increases the risk of fractures

Drinking a lot of milk during adolescence may represent, for a young male, a greater risk of hip and femur fracture in later life.

Diane Feskanich, author of the study and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School, analyzed the fracture history of more than 100,000 patients, middle-aged men and women, relating it all to their milk consumption in their younger years, according to what they themselves reported.

The first surprise is that the increased risk of fractures is found in men, but not in women.
The increase in risk would be 9% for every extra glass of milk drunk during adolescence.
It is therefore difficult to establish a relationship with what is prescribed by the guidelines of the Food & Drugs Administration, which recommends the daily intake of 3 glasses of milk during the developmental years.

To tell the truth, it is the FDA guidelines themselves that warn of the fracture risk, highlighting how the growth factor in milk, by promoting an increase in the individual's height, may be linked to a greater risk of fractures.

The study conducted by Feskanich is mainly statistical and is based on data collected over the span of 20 years by two projects: the Nurses' Health Study for women, started in 1986, and the Health Professional Follow-Up Study for men, beginning in 1988.

The explanation of the phenomenon could be due to multiple causes, as could the issue of the gender difference. But in both cases it is the researchers themselves who point out that this is reasoning purely in the realm of hypotheses.
The study in fact highlights a correlation between greater milk consumption and an increased risk of fractures in male subjects, but a direct cause-and-effect relationship cannot be inferred from it.

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