Doubt cast over study that says milk linked to ovarian cancer

Aug 7 2005

Swedish researchers say that drinking just one glass of milk a day may increase the risk of women developing ovarian cancer.

The scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, analysed 21 studies which researched the link between diet and ovarian cancer and found that drinking milk increased cancer risk by 13 per cent.

The research was carried out on women aged 40 and over, and investigated cases of malignant ovarian cancer, which affects 50 per cent of ovarian cancer sufferers.

But as milk actually lowers the risk of other cancers, the researchers did not recommend women should stop drinking it.

They apparently found no significant link between other dairy products and the disease.

According to Dr Susanna Larsson, drinking a glass a day, which contains approximately 10 grams of lactose, 'creates quite a high-risk increase'.

But she adds that by drinking milk you can lower your risk of developing colon and rectal cancer, which is more common than ovarian cancer, and in the long run milk is still more beneficial than harmful.

Dr Larsson says she is unable to confirm at what age, or over what period of time, drinking milk can begin to cause ill-effects, and says children need milk but perhaps teenagers should consider how much they drink.

Derek Napier, the chief executive of the Association of International Cancer Research (AICR) in St Andrews, is much more direct and comments that if they are saying a glass of milk a day is cancerous ' we might as well shoot ourselves'.

Napier is confident that milk is good for us, and many would suffer from calcium loss without it, which is especially bad for children.

He finds it hard to believe milk will be tarred with the same brush as cigarettes.

Henry Scowcroft, a senior information officer at Cancer Research UK, puts the findings in perspective and says regularly drinking milk is linked to a very tiny increase in the absolute risk of ovarian cancer, which is equivalent to about 0.2 per cent.

As a woman's lifetime ovarian cancer risk is about 2.1 per cent, Cancer Research UK strongly advises 'people not to change their diet to avoid these foods given the health benefits of drinking skimmed milk and eating low-fat dairy products'.

Dr Alice Cotter, a nutritionist and spokeswoman on behalf of the Dairy Council, says the great majority of studies do not support a link between dairy foods and the risk of ovarian cancer.

She says a similar research paper which analysed 22 studies in this area and published in February, did not find any association between milk and dairy foods and ovarian cancer risk, and other studies have shown that milk and dairy foods may have a protective effect against some forms of cancer.

Although studies of this type contribute to scientific research about ovarian cancer, says Cotter, the authors themselves point out several limitations of the study.