Higher milk consumption is not associated with fracture risk reduction: systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Osteoporosis affects over 200 million people worldwide causing nearly 9 million fractures annually, with more than half in America and Europe.This meta-analysis was conducted to investigate whether low milk intake is associated with an increased risk of fractures by summarizing all the available evidence.Relevant studies were identified by searching the PubMed and EMBASE databases up to June 2020. The pooled relative risks with 95% confidence intervals were calculated.In a meta-regression analysis of 20 included studies (11 cohort and 9 case-control studies), a higher milk intake was not associated with a reduction in the total fracture risk in both sexes (OR 0.95, 95% CI: 0.84- 1.08), either in cohort (OR 0.91; 95% CI: 0.79-1.05) or case-control studies (OR 1.09; 95% CI: 0.82-1.44), as well as separately in men (OR 0.87; 95% CI: 0.71-1.07) and women (OR 0.95; 95% CI: 0.80-1.13).Higher milk consumption is not associated with fracture risk reduction and should not be recommended for fracture prevention.