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Scientists from Wageningen UR and the US partners agree upon content and
conclusions in article American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 

Debate has been going on in the media about a study on milk consumption
and cardiovascular diseases, carried out by researchers from Wageningen
University with colleagues from the United States (Harvard University
and the University of California). Findings from the study were
communicated in Resource, a 2-weekly from Wageningen UR (University &
Research centre) based on an interview with one of the Dutch authors.

The investigators have discussed the issue again and want to further
clarify the outcome of the study and put it in a broader perspective.
The Wageningen and US affiliated researchers agreed upon the following
statements:

 

The contents and conclusions of the original paper in the American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition is agreed upon by all authors. It was
noted that: “This dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies
indicates that milk intake is not associated with total mortality but
may be inversely associated with overall cardiovascular disease risk;
however, these findings are based on limited numbers.” 

The initial media message stated that three glasses of milk a day were
associated with an 18% lower risk of cardiovascular diseases. This
statement was based on four European studies, with 13,518 participants
and with a relatively small number of cases (2,283 cases). 

This same paper concluded in an additional analysis of a larger number
of studies with many more cases,  that  two specific and most important
forms of cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and stroke) were not
significantly associated with milk consumption. Heart attacks are the
most important cause of mortality, and this latter was not associated
with milk intake either. Findings from this part of the meta-analysis
suggest that milk does not reduce or increase the risk of heart attacks
or total mortality. The relation between milk consumption and stroke was
not statistically significant, but further research on this topic and
comparisons of milk with other beverages is needed.  

It is important to put health effects of dairy in the context of other
food products in the menu. In other words, whether dairy products have a
favourable or unfavourable effect on health depends on which foods they
replace. It was not possible to examine such comparisons in this type of
analysis.   

Finally, the results of this study are not sufficient to make
recommendations regarding consumption of milk or other dairy products.
For that, further research will be carried out.

Link to the original research paper in the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition:

  HYPERLINK "http://www.ajcn.org/content/93/1/158.abstract" 
www.ajcn.org/content/93/1/158.abstract