Running Head: NUTRITION RESEARCH PAPER

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NUTRITION RESEARCH PAPER

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NUTRITION RESEARCH PAPER

No one disputes that fact that milk is essential when a baby born. In fact, milk as a diet is the best

nutrition that newborn babies should be offered. One report by the American Academy of

Pediatrics (2015) has indicated that for newborn babies, until 1 to 2 years of age, should be

breastfed continuously. But, to breastfeed to that age is often difficult. This can be attributed to

the fact that mothers need to return to work, and the children will also go off to day care or

preschool. While the author continues to note importance of milk consumption, more evidence

continues to surface showing that at certain point in adults’ life, its consumption may not be

helpful; actually, it is detrimental! This comes in spite the move by United State Department of

Agriculture recommendation and advocacy on milk consumption in among adults, suggesting 3

cups a day (Dugdill, 2017).

To start with, one reason for drinking milk has been that it protects against hip fracture.

However, no evidence exists to support this claims. In the year 2015, a research was conducted

by the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research (2018). The study was done six times and

constituted close to 200, 000 women. In this research, - a published meta-analysis of the impact

of milk consumption on hip fracture among the middle-aged and older adults, showed no

association between drinking milk and lowering the rate of fractures. A follow up study by

Drewnowski (2018), which was done on 61,000 women and 45,000 men in Sweden, with 40

years and above had similar results. Milk consumption in adults has no protection for men, and

actually, increases the risk of fractures among women (Drewnowski, 2018). Even though the

second study was not a randomized controlled trial, but that cannot assume the causality in that

case. There is no link of these associated benefits to milk consumption. A significant associate is

more harm and death to both sexes (Dugdill, 2017).

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Secondly, milk has been fortified to vitamin D in the United States. Many believe that it lends

numerous drink bone-friendly properties (Rehm, Drewnowski, Monsivais, 2017).). The evidence

that supports this assumption is very sketchy as well. While it remains true that vitamin D is

needed for bone health and calcium absorption, this does not mean that people should consume

more of it. Colemen-Jensen et al. (2016) published a meta-analysis that was a thorough

examination of the impact of Vitamin D supplementation on the density on bone mineral among

the middle-age and older adults. It showed that, to a very measurable extent, extra vitamin D

does not improve bones of the forearm, hip or spine. It results to a statistically significant, but

much less clinically meaningful, increase in the density of bones which are the top of the

thighbone. Put differently, there is no effect of vitamin D on the overall mineral bone density of

the body.

Lastly, milk is not a low-calorie beverage. Consumption of non-fat milk, three cups a day,

implies that an additional 250 calories have been consumed. The whole milk or low fat has even

more calories (World Bank, 2017). In this era, especially where there is marginalization of other

calories beverage following rampant obesity concerns, it is very odd that milk has continued to

get a pass.

In conclusion, everything including milk is perfectly good in moderate quantities. But what else

would one put on cereal? It is unthinkable to have cookies without milk. Nothing will be wrong

to take a periodic glass because one likes milk. Nevertheless, no evidence exists to support that

adults need it. No evidence is there to show that it is doing them much good.
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Reference

American Academy of Pediatrics. (2017). Low-Fat Milk Consumption among Children and

Adolescents in the United States, 2007–2017; NCHS Data Brief; National Center for

Health Statistics: Hyattsville, MD, USA, 2017; pp. 1–8. Retrieved from:

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/6/e20163290 (Accessed October 23, 2019)

Colemen-Jensen, A., Rabbitt, M.P., Gregory, C.A., Singh, A. (2016). Household Food Security in

the United States in 2015; ERS Rep No. 215; Department of Agriculture: Washington,

DC: USA. Retrieved from https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/84973/err-

237.pdf (Accessed October 23, 2019)

Dugdill, B.T. (2017). The village milk system – an alternative, low-cost milk collecting and in-

pouch pasteurising system. Poster paper presented at the FAO e-mail conference on Milk

Collection and Processing in Developed Countries, 29 May to 28 July 2015. Available at:

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/themes/documents/LPS/DAIRY/ecs/Proceedings/econf-proc-

english.pdf (Accessed October 23, 2019)

Drewnowski, A. (2018). The contribution of milk and milk products to micronutrient density and

affordability of the US diet. J. Am. Coll. Nutr. 2011, 30, 422S–428S. Retrieved from:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07315724.2011.10719986?

scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=uacn20 (Accessed October 23, 2019)

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Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. (2018). The next food revolution. Food, Agriculture and

the Environment Discussion International Food Policy Research Institute: Washington,

DC

Rehm, C.D, Drewnowski, A., Monsivais, P. (2017). Potential population-level nutritional

impact of replacing whole and reduced-fat milk with low-fat and skim milk among US

children aged 2–19 years. J. Nutr. Educ. Behav. 2015, 47, 61–68. Retrieved from:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4980227/ (Accessed October 23, 2019)

World Bank. (2017b). Determinants of human nutrition and the pathways linking agriculture

and nutrition. In From agriculture to nutrition; pathways, synergies and outcomes, pp. 9–

14. Report no. 40916–GLB. Washington, DC, World Bank. Available at:

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTARD/Resources/Final.pdf. Accessed 25 October

2012.
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