It’s a richly nutritious mixture of sugars, proteins, vitamins, minerals and fat. Babies need it – but for the rest of us the evidence is semi-skimmed at best
Milk is a richly nutritious mixture of water, proteins, minerals, vitamins, sugars, saturated fat and cholesterol. All mammals make it, but humans are the only ones to drink it beyond their early years. Should we?
Breast milk – or synthetic versions of it – provides the “perfect balance of nutrients” for babies in their first year, says Andy Bernstein, a paediatrician at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. After that, full-fat cow’s milk is recommended as a good source of fat for brain development, dropping to 1 or 2 per cent fat milk from age 2.
Read more: Good hydrations: From water to wine, how drinks affect health
We swallow 1.7 litres of fluids on average a day – and with them a lot of myths about what is, and isn’t good for us
But although programmes in the US and UK that gave milk to children in schools were associated with huge health benefits, it is not clear why. “We don’t know if there is something specific or special about milk, or if it is just the fact that these children are getting more calories, protein, nutrients in general,” says Andrea Wiley of the University of Indiana at Bloomington. A recent study of children in Kenya found that supplemental milk helped those with stunted growth catch up in height, but provided no benefits over a non-milk nutritional supplement for children developing normally.
For adults, the benefits seem even more dubious. There is no conclusive evidence, for example, that getting extra calcium from milk is vital for maintaining healthy bones or avoiding fractures. Other foods besides milk – “beans and greens”, largely …
