02/25/2026
Following more than 200,000 adults for up to three decades, researchers found that those who consumed more dairy lived significantly shorter lives. Each additional half-serving of cow’s milk a day was associated with a 9 percent increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, an 11 percent increased risk of dying from cancer, and an 11 percent increased risk of dying from all causes put together.
Of course, what you eat instead of dairy matters. Swapping out dairy for meat, including poultry and fish, would not be expected to do your body any favors. What about eggs or processed meat? You would be expected to live longer eating dairy than either of those animal-based foods. Researchers only saw significant drops in mortality risk when dairy was swapped out and plant-based sources of protein were added in.
When all of the milk and mortality studies are put together, it appears the excess mortality risk is limited to regular cow’s milk as opposed to low-fat or skim varieties. A randomized crossover study of low-fat, fermented, and unfermented dairy products found that study subjects had significantly higher IL-6 inflammation levels on the unfermented regular (not low-fat) dairy weeks, compared to when they were switched to either the fermented or low-fat dairy products.
The milk fermentation process can eliminate some of the galactose, a sugar naturally found in dairy. As we age, our ability to detoxify galactose declines by as much as 40 percent, which makes it even more important to avoid dairy later in life. That’s if galactose is indeed the culprit. High milk consumers getting five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day reduced their chance of dying prematurely to just 60 percent greater than those drinking less milk.
What role does milk play in osteoporosis and hip fractures? See my video "Why Do Milk Drinkers Live Shorter Lives on Average?" at https://see.nf/milkupdate to learn more.
PMIDs: 31776125, 32053300, 33397132, 23756569, 3417228, 28184428
