milk’s fat & lactose content increase the risk cancer

Other Cancers - How Foods Fight Cancer

Researchers at Harvard University and elsewhere have also studied the links
between milk consumption and ovarian cancer, but with mixed results. The
hypotheses under scrutiny have related not only to milk’s fat content, but
also to its sugar, lactose.

Lactose is actually made of two smaller sugar molecules called galactose
and glucose. When these two sugars are split apart—either by the
bacteria used to produce yogurt or by digestive enzymes in your intestinal
tract—galactose and glucose enter the blood. Galactose may be the problem.

In large concentrations, galactose may be toxic to the ovaries,
encouraging infertility and possibly cancer. A recent analysis of studies
examining a relationship between dairy product consumption (skim, lowfat,
and whole milk, yogurt, cheese, and lactose) and ovarian cancer risk
found that for every 10 grams of lactose consumed (the amount in one glass
of milk), ovarian cancer risk increased by 13 percent among the prospective
cohort studies.9

Women with higher levels of IGF-1 in their blood have a greater risk
of premenopausal breast cancer. The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study found
that women with higher IGF-1 levels had more than double the risk compared
to women with lower IGF-1 levels.6 Other researchers have made
similar findings.10 As we’ve seen, milk drinking raises IGF-1 levels.

Other studies seeking to nail down the links between dairy consumption
and breast cancer risk have yielded mixed results, with some finding
higher risk of breast cancer among milk drinkers and others finding no
such association.

Foods that are high in calcium appear to reduce colon cancer risk.
However, people seeking ways to use calcium-rich foods to reduce colon
cancer risk would do well to get their calcium from green leafy vegetables
and beans rather than from dairy products. Prostate and breast cancer are
more common than colon cancer. Using dairy products to try to reduce
colon cancer risk may increase the risk of other, more common cancers.