To hear the dairy industry tell it, if you consume three glasses of milk daily, your bones will be stronger and you will be able to rest assured that osteoporosis is not in your future. Not so.
After examining all the available nutritional studies and evidence, Dr. John McDougall concludes: "The primary cause of osteoporosis is the high-protein diet most Americans consume today. As one leading researcher in this area said, 'eating a high-protein diet is like pouring acid rain on your bones.'" Remarkably enough, both clinical and population studies show that milk-drinkers tend to have more bone breaks than people who consume milk infrequently or not at all. For the dairy industry to lull unsuspecting women and children into complacency by telling them to be sure to drink more milk so that their bones will be strong may make good business sense, but it does the consumer a grave disservice.
Much of the world's population does not consume cow's milk, and yet most of the world does not experience the high rates of osteoporosis found in the West. In some Asian countries, for example, where consumption of dairy foods is low, fracture rates are far lower than they are in the United States and in Scandinavian countries, where consumption of dairy products is high.