A GLASS of milk a day can keep osteoarthritis (OA) at bay, at least for women with the disease affecting their knees, research has shown.
Increasing consumption of fat-free or low-fat milk was found to slow progression of the degenerative condition, which wears away the joints.
Women who drank more than seven eight ounce glasses a week had significantly less space between their joints than those who drank none after four years.
Those who drank no milk had an average width space of 0.38mm millimetres, compared with 0.26mm for high consumers.
No association was seen between milk consumption drinking milk and reduced joint space width in men. The trend was maintained after adjusting for disease severity, body mass index (BMI), and diet.
"Milk consumption plays an important role in bone health," said lead scientist Dr Bing Lu, from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, US. "Our study is the largest study to investigate the impact of dairy intake in the progression of knee OA.
"Our findings indicate women who frequently drink milk may reduce the progression of OA. "
The findings are reported in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.
A total of 2148 men and women with knee OA were recruited for the Osteoarthritis Initiative study.
In the journal, US experts Dr Shivani Sahni and Robert McLean, from the Hebrew SeniorLife Institute for Aging Research wrote: "The study provides the first evidence increasing fat-free or low-fat milk consumption may slow the progression of OA among women who are particularly burdened by OA of the knee."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article