Dairy (including milk, kefir, yogurt etc.) actually increases bone fractures?

[HealthELiving]

Many doctors and articles seem to tout dairy for the calcium to help build bone density, yet I am reading more articles that seem to reinforce the studies which find that not only does it not help, it is actually detrimental and increases risk of fracture and even Parkinsons disease.

Anyone else?

[Southerngirl2787]

In research I've read over the years, dairy was not listed as a primary good source for calcium. Being allergic to cow's milk has also eliminated most of it from my diet, but there are other sources. The research changes, improves over the years, but the old ideas are still out there. Dairy is also very inflammatory, in the autoimmune world, we are told to eliminate it or greatly reduce it. It can cause digestion issues, sinus, joint inflammation and allergic responses. Commercial dairy is the worst, with pasture raised organic better, unfortunately, raw milk, which has no much nutrition and value, has been made illegal in many states, some things don't make sense.

[CDreamer]

I don’t drink milk but take butter and cheese. The latest research Zoe on dairy is quite interesting and demonstrates that far from being inflammatory actually has anti-inflammatory properties. All I know is that personally, milk doesn’t agree with me and I think individuals digest and metabolise very differently.

There are 10 micronutrients recommended for good bone health so this idea of focusing on one - Calcium - seems strange to me. Take Calcium without D3 it will harm so we need D3 to direct calcium to the bones. D3 won’t be affective unless you take K2 (MK2) and Vitamin C - etc, etc so we need also

Calcium

Vitamin D3 with Vitamin K2 (MK7) Vitamin C

Vitamin B9 (Folate)

Magnesium

Boron

Zinc

Copper

Manganese

I focus much less now on what these studies say and much more on eating as wide a variety of foods as I can - Eat the Rainbow as a lot of brightly coloured foods such as beetroot have excellent nutrient value.

I have always been able to access milk from grass fed animals and because in the UK we still have a large number of small farms we can access raw milk, we even have a farm locally where you can buy raw goats mile - which is very rare nowadays. Pasteurisation does destroy some micronutrients but we also need to remember that there is good reason for pasteurisation and that raw milk producers have undergo stringent testing before sale making it expensive so only available in small quantities.

Let food be our medicine. Thankfully we still have choice as to whether or not to take supplements and pharmaceuticals but we all need to eat so let us try get our nutrients from good quality, fresh and organic and locally grown, if possible, wide variety of foods.

[Smithie49 in reply to CDreamer]

I totally agree CDreamer - a wide variety of foods to which you are not allergic seems the way to go. However to be really 100% certain that what you input is not doing more harm than good, why not eliminate all food 😀 😉 😄

[agingfeminist]

the latest research indicates that milk doesn't protect against fractures but fermented dairy does...cheese (cheddar etc) yogurt and kefir are great.

[Piglet44]

I eat keffir home made daily and lots of cheese. I habe improved over last 7 years

[Met00]

The articles I've read about this seem to have made an assumption about cause and effect that is likely to be erroneous. Yes, there's more osteoporosis in countries that have higher dairy consumption, but these are countries where people also tend to eat a lot of highly processed foods, have poor diets in general and lead sedentary lifestyles. Within these countries there's other evidence that those who eat dairy are less likely to have poor bone health than those who don't.

[HealthELiving]

Great conversation. I agree with Met00 that the margin of error due to lack of defined controls and identification of test participants habits may skew results to a false understanding. It is one of the more frustrating elements of finding 'good' information. We seem to be our own 'test study' in realtime. To add to it, no two bodies react identically to a generalized approach, even identical twins (which I am).

That said, the general approach to reducing potential inflammation does play an important role for bone health, brain health, and aging. How each of us approaches it seems to have a common thread for those of us not taking calcium supplements. The mediterranean diet appears to be endorsed in studies.