Milk Increases Hip Fracture Risk for Males

Drinking more milk as a teenager apparently does not lower the risk of hip fracture as an older adult and instead appears to increase that risk for men. Diane Feskanich, Sc.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University, Boston, and colleagues have just published this work in JAMA Pediatrics.

Dr. Feskanich and colleagues examined the association between remembered teenage milk consumption and risk of hip fracture at older ages in a study of more than 96, 000 men and women with a follow-up of more than 22 years. During the follow-up, 1, 226 hip fractures were reported by women and 490 by men.

Study findings indicate that teenage milk consumption (between the ages of 13-18 years) was associated with an increased risk of hip fractures in men, with each additional glass of milk per day as a teenager associated with a 9% higher risk. Teenage milk consumption was not associated with hip fractures in women.

“We did not see an increased risk of hip fracture with teenage milk consumption in women as we did in men. One explanation may be the competing benefit of an increase in bone mass with an adverse effect of greater height. Women are at higher risk for osteoporosis than men, hence the benefit of greater bone mass balanced the increased risk related to height, ” the authors commented.

Dr. Feskanich told OTW, “Our hypothesis was that drinking more milk during teenage years would not be associated with a lower risk of hip fracture in older adults. Our results confirmed this, so it was not surprising. We were surprised, however, to find that boys who drank more milk had an increased risk of hip fracture in later life, which was partly mediated through the greater height attained with higher milk consumption. We will continue to examine milk consumption during adult years and its effect on hip fracture in men and women. Again, we hypothesize that we will not see a significant benefit from drinking more milk.”