Hip fractures 60% more likely in people who drank a lot of milk - Greger Feb 2024

Why Do Milk Drinkers Live Shorter Lives on Average?
- Sources Cited
77+ Hip fracture studies in VitaminDWiki title
VitaminDWiki - Calcium - Kale has 5X Calcium than skim milk, and is more bioavailable - Jan 2024
VitaminDWiki - 7 studies in both categories Falls/Fractures and Calcium

Why Do Milk Drinkers Live Shorter Lives on Average?

Dr. Greger
In my video on milk and bones, I discussed this set of studies, following 100,000 people for up to two decades, finding a 60 percent higher risk of hip fracture among women who drank a lot of milk. The researchers suggested it might be due to the galactose, which is a breakdown product of the milk sugar lactose, based on the fact that people with high levels in their blood––because they were born with an inability to detoxify the stuff––can end up with weakened bones. But that’s not all galactose can do.

Galactose is what scientists use to cause accelerated aging in lab animals, since it’s so successful at mimicking aging by inducing degenerative changes in the brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidney, etc. “The life-shortened animals showed neurodegeneration, mental retardation and cognitive dysfunction, … diminished immune responses, and a reduction of reproductive ability.” And it doesn’t take much—just the human equivalent of one to two glasses’ worth of milk a day.

However, humans aren’t rodents. For example, we’ve known for nearly a century that you can cause cataracts in rats by feeding them a lot of lactose or galactose, but the epidemiological data is mixed as to whether dairy is doing the same in people.

The Swedish studies didn’t just look at bone, though, but milk and mortality. More milk was associated with more death. In women, three glasses of milk a day was associated with nearly twice the risk of dying prematurely. The medical journal editorial accompanying the study emphasized that, given the rise in milk consumption around the world, “the role of milk in mortality needs to be established definitively now.”

With the then-largest-ever study on milk intake and mortality suggesting such adverse effects, Harvard researchers stepped in with three of their cohorts to form a study twice as big to see if the earlier findings were just a fluke. Following more than 200,000 men and women for up to three decades, they confirmed the bad news. Those who consumed more dairy lived significantly shorter lives. Every half serving more of regular milk a day was associated with 9 percent increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, 11 percent increased risk of dying from cancer, and an 11 percent increased risk of dying from all causes put together. This is all the more remarkable since milk drinking is typically associated with healthier habits, like more exercise and less smoking and drinking, though they did try to control for all these factors.

Of course, it does matter what you eat instead. This Harvard analysis, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that swapping dairy for meat, red meat, poultry, or fish would not be expected to do your body any favors, and you would be expected to live longer eating dairy than eggs or processed meat. It’s only when you swap dairy for plant-based sources of protein did they find a significant drop in mortality risk.

When all of the milk and mortality studies are put together, it appears the excess mortality risk is limited to regular as opposed to low-fat (like skim) milk. This suggests it may be more of a saturated fat issue, though that doesn’t explain why soured (or fermented) milk appears to have the opposite impact. So, maybe it’s both the butterfat and the galactose. A randomized crossover study of low-fat dairy, fermented dairy, and unfermented dairy found that study subjects had significantly higher IL-6 inflammation levels during unfermented regular dairy weeks, compared to when they were switched to either the fermented or low-fat dairy products. The fermentation process can eliminate some of the galactose.

As we age, our ability to detoxify galactose declines by as much as 40 percent, which would make it even more important to avoid dairy later in life––if indeed galactose is the culprit. But if galactose does its dirty work through oxidation and inflammation, might increased fruit and vegetable intake help mediate some of the harm? In animals, galactose-induced aging can be slowed by fruit and vegetable consumption. For example, feeding rats blueberries can decrease the brain damage induced by the milk sugar. Might it be able to help with the higher levels of oxidative stress and inflammation found among human milk-drinkers? Unfortunately, women drinking three or more glasses of milk a day had more than twice the risk of hip fractures compared to women drinking less than a glass a day, regardless of whether they were eating more or less fruits and vegetables. But those high milk consumers consuming five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day did reduce their chance of dying prematurely to just 60 percent greater than those drinking less milk; so, antioxidant-rich foods may be able to modify the elevated death rate associated with high milk consumption.

Highly influential advocacy organizations such as the U.S. National Osteoporosis Foundation or the Europe-based International Osteoporosis Foundation continue to push dairy, drugs, and calcium supplements, despite the countervailing evidence that I’ve reviewed. Why do they keep pushing dairy, drugs, and supplements? Perhaps because their objectivity is compromised by the influence of their commercial sponsors that include companies that market—you guessed it—dairy, drugs, and supplements. Most recent reviews on dairy and osteoporosis in the English-language medical literature were found to be written by those with ties to the dairy industry. The primary justification for inclusion of dairy in federal nutrition recommendations is based on purported bone benefits that are not supported by the available evidence.

What if dietary guidelines were fashioned without commercial influence? In 2019, Canada decided to exclude industry reports and stick to the science in the formation of their new dietary guidelines. What a concept!
Major changes included a new emphasis on plant-based food intake, limiting junk, and the removal of the dairy food group.

Sources Cited

77+ Hip fracture studies in VitaminDWiki title

This list is automatically updated

Items found: 77

Title		Modified
Hip fractures 60% more likely in people who drank a lot of milk - Greger Feb 2024		14 Feb, 2024
Hip fracture risk was reduced by 4 times when Vitamin D was added to SERMS - Jan 2024		25 Jan, 2024
Risk of Hip fracture cut in half if Vitamin D was prescribed - Aug 2023		26 Aug, 2023
Hip fractures are predicted by 10 factors – low Vitamin D is the biggest – Aug 2023		11 Aug, 2023
Hip fractures greatly reduced by sunshine, vitamin D, and vitamin K – meta-analysis Sept 2012		23 Dec, 2022
Hip fractures requiring hospitalization cut in half by Vitamin K1 (100 mcg per day) – Sept 2022		17 Dec, 2022
More hip fractures if low vitamin D (2.1X in case-controlled studies) – meta-analysis May 2022		01 Jun, 2022
Less than 3 percent of hip fracture patients prescribed enough Vitamin D to make a difference (Malta in this case) – July 2021		26 Jul, 2021
Recommends vitamin D after hip fracture ( but not enough and no-bone building co-factors) – May 2021		21 May, 2021
A call to action: Vitamin D for hip fracture (50,000 weekly for 8 weeks, then bi-weekly – Holick July 2020		11 Dec, 2020
Risk factors for death after hip fracture surgery – 7 of the 8 are associated with low vitamin D – Aug 2020		09 Aug, 2020
Guideline following hip fracture – 50000 IU vitamin D daily for 7 days – Jan 2013		07 Jun, 2020
3.5 X higher risk of death 2 years after hip fracture surgery if low vitamin D – Jan 2020		07 Mar, 2020
Hip surgery with multiple doses of 50,000 IU of vitamin D weekly both before and after – RCT 2023		16 Jan, 2020
Hip fractures not prevented by Vitamin D (800 IU daily or large quarterly or annual doses) – meta-analysis – Dec 2019		21 Dec, 2019
Hip fractures reduced 16 to 33 percent by any amount of Vitamin D and Calcium – Oct 2019		05 Nov, 2019
Hip fracture rate increases in winter (subtropical Australia too) – Aug 2019		10 Aug, 2019
Warning - High intake of Vitamin B12 and B6 found to increase risk of hip fracture by 47 percent - 2019		19 May, 2019
Following hip fracture 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily improved quality of life – Feb 2019		23 Mar, 2019
Hip fractures worse if both high PTH and low Vitamin D – Jan 2019		01 Feb, 2019
Hip fracture recovery best with home exercise plus Vitamin D – RCT Dec 2018		12 Dec, 2018
Death of older hip fracture patients at least 1.6X more likely if low vitamin D – May 2018		19 Nov, 2018
After hip surgery Vitamin D levels dropped by 32 percent – Sept 2018		26 Sep, 2018
France wants to reduce hip fractures by drinking 10 glasses of milk daily – April 2018		01 Apr, 2018
Hip fractures rates have been increasing since 2012 – Feb 2018		12 Feb, 2018
Hip fracture 58 percent more likely if low vitamin D – meta-analysis March 2017		20 Dec, 2017
Hip fracture risk reduced 6 percent for each daily dairy serving (more if full-fat dairy) – Oct 2017		28 Oct, 2017
France is planning to reduce hip fractures by dairy vitamin D fortification (plan will not work) – 2017		17 Oct, 2017
Vitamin D and exercise after hip fracture surgery – far fewer deaths – July 2016		23 Aug, 2017
Most Hip fracture patients had low vitamin D and protein (needed for strong bones) – May 2017		18 May, 2017
1 in 3 died after hip fracture but only 1 in 14 if add Vitamin D and exercise – RCT April 2017		19 Apr, 2017
Vitamin D loading dose after hip fracture surgery was great – RCT Aug 2016		06 Apr, 2017
Following a stroke, a hip fracture is 6X more likely if low vitamin D – July 2001		04 Mar, 2017
Gene makes Hip Fracture 2.5X more likely unless get more vitamin D - Aug 2015		12 Nov, 2016
Partial (proximal) hip fracture strongly associated with low Vitamin D – Aug 2016		08 Nov, 2016
24 years ago hip fractures were reduced 24 percent in a large trial using Vitamin D and Ca – Oct 2016		22 Oct, 2016
Kaiser working to decrease hip and other fractures – Nov 2011		22 Oct, 2016
Hip Fracture 2.5 times more likely if poor Vitamin D Binding Protein gene - Aug 2015		25 Sep, 2016
Hip fracture risk increased 2.5X if problem with Vitamin D Receptor gene (GC) – March 2014		25 Sep, 2016
Hip fracture 50 percent more likely if low in both vitamin D and vitamin K1 – Dec 2015		26 Dec, 2015
Hip fracture 3X more likely if low vitamin D – Dec 2015		26 Dec, 2015
5X fewer hip fractures from Parkinson – Alzheimer – Stroke with enough sun – June 2011		17 Jul, 2015
7 X more likely to get hip fracture if have highest level of vitamin A – Jan 2003		31 May, 2015
Delirium 2.7 X more likely after hip fracture and low vitamin D – May 2015		27 May, 2015
Hip fractures reduced 30 percent with 800 IU of vitamin D – meta-analysis July 2012		16 Mar, 2015
Hip fracture outcome 5X more likely to be poor if low vitamin D – Jan 2015		16 Mar, 2015
Hip fracture rate varies with latitude (and thus vitamin D) in Sweden – Nov 2013		20 Feb, 2015
Hip Fracture – 5X more likely to have bad outcome if have less than 20 ng of vitamin D – Dec 2014		22 Jan, 2015
Hip replacement 2X more likely if hip bone surgery was during winter (low vitamin D) – Dec 2014		05 Dec, 2014
Fewer heart attacks, hip fractures and deaths if more skin cancer – Sept 2013		09 Nov, 2014
Hip fracture – not getting enough vitamin D – 2013		28 May, 2014
Hip fractures reduced 2X to 6X with just 10 minutes of sunlight daily – RCT 2003-2010		04 Dec, 2013
Men with hip fracture were 1.6X more likely to have low vitamin D – Aug 2013		09 Nov, 2013
5X increase in hip fracture rates in 65 years - 1998		27 Aug, 2013
Hip fracture reduced 38 percent with Calcium and just 400 IU of vitamin D – RCT Feb 2013		17 Aug, 2013
20 percent fewer male hip fractures if more Magnesium in the water – July 2013		11 Jul, 2013
Half as many hip fractures if take Calcium, hormones, and a tiny amount of vitamin D – July 2013		26 Jun, 2013
Male Hip fracture 1.65X more likely if low vitamin D – May 2013		01 Jun, 2013
Vitamin D needed to prevent and treat hip fracture, but only 20 percent got any – May 2013		31 May, 2013
Tiger got surgery for hip arthritis – not much sun in the cage – March 2013		23 Mar, 2013
Having less than 25 ng of vitamin D was associated with severe hip fracture – March 2011		30 Jan, 2013
Hip fracture 19 percent less likely with just 4 ng higher level of vitamin D – Dec 2012		20 Dec, 2012
Hip fracture and vitamin D – Health ABC study – May 2012		28 Sep, 2012
Hip surgery followed by 100000 IU then 1000 IU of vitamin D daily – June 2010		31 Aug, 2012
2X to 3X higher hip fracture rate in Asia in past 30 years – Aug 2012		18 Aug, 2012
Cataract surgery resulted in 30 percent fewer hip fractures – July 2012		02 Aug, 2012
Hip fractures in India - editorial with recommendation - Sept 2010		06 Jul, 2012
Women with hip fractures very low on vitamins D3 and K – Mar 2011		06 Jul, 2012
Upper body bones fractured along with hip when extremely low on vitamin D – Sept 2010		24 Jun, 2012
30 percent less chance of dying after hip fracture if take vitamin D and other drugs – 2011		24 Jun, 2012
75 percent of hip fractures associated with vitamin D deficiency - Jan 2011		24 Jun, 2012
Vitamin D 2nd most recommended way to prevent next hip fracture – Nov 2010		23 Jun, 2012
Hip fractures worse if very low on vitamin D – Mar 2011		23 Jun, 2012
Hip fracture patients had only 16 ng of vitamin D – May 2011		23 Jun, 2012
Declining hip fracture rates in the United States – unknown reason – June 2010		23 Jun, 2012
Vitamin K1 reduced hip fracture but Vitamin K2 did not – Aug 2011		23 Jun, 2012
Calcium and vitamin D supplements after hip fracture reduced death rate by 25% – Feb 2011		19 Nov, 2011

VitaminDWiki - Calcium - Kale has 5X Calcium than skim milk, and is more bioavailable - Jan 2024

VitaminDWiki - 7 studies in both categories Falls/Fractures and Calcium