Milk consumption, stroke, and heart attack risk: evidence from the Caerphilly cohort of older men
Open Access
- 1 June 2005
- journal article
- research article
- Published by BMJ in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
- Vol. 59 (6) , 502-505
- https://doi.org/10.1136/jech.2004.027904
Abstract
Objective: To examine associations between milk consumption and incident heart disease and stroke. Design: A representative population sample of men was asked to weigh and record their food intake for seven days. The total consumption of milk was obtained from these records. Details of all deaths and vascular events were collected during the following 20 years. Incident ischaemic strokes and heart disease events were diagnosed by standard criteria. Setting: The Caerphilly cohort, a representative population sample of men in South Wales, aged 45–59 when first seen in 1979–83. Participants: A representative 3:10 subsample of the men in the cohort. Main results: 665 men (87% of those approached) returned satisfactory seven day diet diaries. After adjustment, the relative odds of an event in the men whose milk consumption was the median or higher, relative to those with lower intakes of milk, were 0.52 (0.27 to 0.99) for an ischaemic stroke and 0.88 (0.56 to 1.40) for an ischaemic heart disease event. Deaths from all causes were similar in the two milk consumption groups (relative odds 1.08; 0.74 to 1.58). Conclusions: These results give no convincing evidence of an increased risk of vascular disease from milk drinking. Rather, the subjects who drank more than the median amount of milk had a reduced risk of an ischaemic stroke, and possibly a reduced risk of an ischaemic heart disease event. These conclusions are in agreement with the results of a previously reported overview of 10 large, long term cohort studies based on food frequency intake records.Keywords
This publication has 24 references indexed in Scilit:
- Milk drinking, ischaemic heart disease and ischaemic stroke II. Evidence from cohort studiesEuropean Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2004
- Are imprecise methods obscuring a relation between fat and breast cancer?Published by Elsevier ,2003
- The cow and the coronary: epidemiology, biochemistry and immunologyInternational Journal of Cardiology, 2003
- Milk, butter, and heart disease.BMJ, 1991
- Prevalence of ischaemic heart disease: the Caerphilly and Speedwell surveys.Heart, 1988
- Meat consumption and fatal ischemic heart diseasePreventive Medicine, 1984
- A weighed dietary survey of men in Caerphilly, South Wales.1984
- Milk consumption, calcium intake, and decreased hypertension in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico Heart Health Program study.Hypertension, 1984
- Milk, plasma cholesterol and controls in nutritional experimentsAtherosclerosis, 1982
- Is milk a coronary health hazard?Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 1977