Milk And Milk Products In Childhood May Lower Mortality
New evidence suggests that children who have a diet high in calcium and who consume dairy products may have a lower mortality rate compared with those who do not, according to a research published ahead of print in the journal Heart.
A 65-year follow up of a study into the eating habits of families carried out in the 1930s found that dairy products and a diet high in calcium made a difference to how long people lived.
Heart disease risk factors and thickening of the arteries begins in childhood and existing evidence into what effect dairy consumption has, is limited. Some dairy products such as whole milk, butter and cheese have a high content of saturated fatty acids and cholesterol and some studies indicate that consumption of these in adulthood contributes to heart disease. Although the practice of giving extra milk to school children has been common in Europe since the 20th century, debate continues over the long term health effects of doing this and over determining what safe intake levels are.
Researchers from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane in Australia , and the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol , carried out a 65-year follow up of a study done in the 1930s.
In 1937-39, children from 1,343 families in England and Scotland took part in a study of family food consumption assessed from 7-day household food inventories. The data came from the Carnegie ("Boyd Orr") survey of diet and health in pre-war Britain . The international team of researchers managed to ascertain what had happened to 4,374 of these children between 1948 and 2005. By 2005, 1,468 (34%) of them had died, including 378 deaths due to coronary heart disease and 121 deaths due to stroke.
The researchers looked at two main outcomes -- deaths due to stroke and cardiovascular disease -- and analysed associations between total dairy intake and mortality, and associations between individual dairy food groups and mortality.
The researchers found that there was no clear evidence that intake of dairy products was associated with coronary heart disease or stroke deaths. However, childhood calcium intake was inversely associated with stroke mortality but not heart disease mortality.
Children who were in the group that had the highest calcium intake and dairy product consumption were found to have lower mortality rates than those in the lower intake groups.
The authors conclude: "Children whose family diet in the 1930s was high in calcium were at reduced risk of death from stroke. Furthermore, childhood diets rich in dairy or calcium were associated with lower all-cause mortality in adulthood. Replication in other study populations is needed …. because other factors, such as socioeconomic differences, explain part of these findings."
Nutrition Facts Parents Should Know
Some say that milk does a body good, but do you know everything there is to know about the drink your kids love so much?
The following are a few things you should know about your kids and milk:
| 1. |
They need to drink more milk . Milk contains nine essential nutrients and vitamins, including proteins , vitamins A, D, and B12, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, riboflavin, niacin, zinc, and magnesium. Children who drink milk tend to have "superior" overall nutrient intakes when compared to children who don't drink milk. Adolescents should drink three 8-ounce glasses of reduced-fat or skimmed milk (or equivalent products, such as yogurt ) every day . |
| 2. |
Many parents don't know whether their kids need to drink whole milk -- 2 percent, 1 percent, or fat-free. It has been recommended that whole milk (usually 3.5 percent to 4 percent fat) be given to children up to age 2 because saturated fats are needed for brain development. Eighty percent of brain development occurs in the first two years of life. Hence, you want the fat at that point. |
| 3. |
For kids over the age of 2, it's best to serve reduced-fat milk (either 1 or 2 percent). This is primarily because kids obtain lots of fat from their diets. And milk, despite containing a lot of helpful nutrients, is not a source of fat. |
| 4. |
Not all toddlers should drink whole milk. Because obesity is a risk factor for heart disease and is often accompanied by cholesterol problems, the Paediatrics. Academy now recommends low-fat milk (no more than 2 percent fat) for 1-year-olds for whom weight or obesity is a concern. This new advice is aimed at 1-year -olds who are already overweight, have overweight parents, or have a family history of heart problems. Very young children are increasingly obtaining fats from sources other than milk. |
| 5. |
Drinking flavoured milk isn't bad. Limiting children and teens' access to flavoured milk may only lead to the undesirable effect of cutting nutrient intake. Flavoured milk is better than none at all, even though it has more sugar and a slightly higher calorie content than unflavored milk. Flavoured milk is a nutrient-rich package providing the same nine essential nutrients as plain milk. Each 8-ounce serving of milk--plain or flavoured--provides 300 mg of calcium, which is a fourth of the daily calcium requirement for children. While flavoured milk contains both natural and added sugars (nearly half of the sugar in flavoured milk is naturally present in the milk), it contains less added sugar than other beverages that kids drink, such as carbonated soft drinks. |
| 6. |
Even lactose-intolerant kids may be able to stomach some milk or dairy products. Parents are advised not to give up on feeding dairy products to lactose-intolerant children and teens. The reason: The calcium in these foods is important for bone health, and dairy products also contain other nutrients important for growth. |
| 7. |
A very small percentage of children have some degree of intolerance to lactose, the sugar naturally found in milk. Yet lactose intolerance is often mild enough and affected kids can consume at least some milk and dairy products. Also, yogurt and cheese contain less lactose per serving than milk. If your child is going to have a lactose-intolerance problem, it's usually identified as a problem in the first five years. |
Advantages of Milk Products:
| 1. |
Milk provides your child Calcium and Phosphorous. Packaged milk is also fortified with Vitamin D. This helps your child maintain strong bones and teeth. It also helps prevent diseases which occur as a result of Vitamin D deficiency. |
| 2 |
Milk is an important source of high quality protein. Protein helps your child in growth and in repair of tissues in his/her body. |
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| 3. |
Growing kids need fat to give them energy because they are highly active. Milk has a decent amount of fat. 4. Lactose in milk removes harmful bacteria from the intestines and helps them function properly. 5. Milk consumption has been, in recent studies, linked to a reduced risk of heart disease, type-2 diabetes, colon cancer and obesity. 6. If your child drinks milk, he/she is less likely to drink carbonated soft drinks, which are harmful to your child in all ways . |
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