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No, drinking cow's milk does not increase the risk of breast cancer

A new observational study has just been published and taken up in the press which states that " drinking cow's milk would increase the risk of breast cancer ". Except that this statement is wrong. Here's why.

A new study has just been published in theInternational Journal of Epidemiology and the newspapers hastened to pick up the news by titling " Drink milk from cow increase risk of breast cancer ". This could be called misinformation. We explain why.

What does the study really tell us?

If we wanted to give a coherent answer to this question, we would have to say this: after statistical adjustment of consumption soy, moderate to high intake of cow's milk increases the relative risk of developing cancer by 22 to 84% in postmenopausal women or premenopausal who attend Adventist churches. Not really the same as " drinking cow's milk would increase the risk of breast cancer " is not it ?

Next, it is an observational study that is part of a body of evidence already available. If you want to process information well, you should be familiar with this corpus. Gold, meta-analyzes available in scientific literature regarding consumption cow's milk (skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole) and the risk of breast cancer in the general population lead to the conclusion that there is no correlation between these two variables.

In addition, the authors point out that the correlation between cow's milk and breast cancer becomes positive only when it is adjusted relative to the consumption of soy in their cohort. Alone, it is not. But the most surprising is that: of this cohort of 52,795 women, only 1,057 developed breast cancer during follow-up even though the prevalence for the region is one in eight women. One in eight women, for a cohort of this size, one would expect to see, statistically, no less than 6,599 cases of cancer. But if you follow correctly, the basic sample is biased, so we can conclude that there are apparently fewer cases of cancer in this sub-category of the North American population, perhaps thanks to components of their way of life.

Furthermore, one can also wonder if these cancer cases would not have happened anyway, with or without consumption (excessive or not) of cow's milk or soy. This would require knowing the base rate ofimpact cancer in this specific population. Finally, the authors get bogged down in causal explanations to justify their results. Remember that you must highlight a fact before looking for the cause.

What to do ?

Unless you are consuming too much soy or cow's milk, do not change your eating habits for these two foods because of these results. Eat a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables Mediterranean type, practice regular physical activity and avoid toxic such as alcohol or tobacco if you want to take care of your health and reduce your risk of developing cancer later in your life. Remember that consuming dairy products is absolutely not essential. You can eat it for pleasure if you like them, up to two per day according to current dietary recommendations.

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