HEALTH - Milk might NOT be good for you

Milk might NOT be good for you: Harvard scientist claims sweeteners added to cartons cancel out health benefits

• -  Low-fat chocolate milk does more harm than good
• -  Eating other calcium-rich foods is a more healthy substitute
• -  Some people may be able to eliminate milk from their diet

By RYAN GORMAN

PUBLISHED: 02:36 GMT, 2 July 2013 | UPDATED: 03:29 GMT, 2 July 2013

Milk doesn’t always do your body good, and can actually be harmful, according to a prominent doctor.

The age-old adage that drinking milk is one of the keys to good health received a strong rebuttal from Harvard pediatrician David Ludwig. In a paper published Monday, Ludwig argued that dairy products with added sweeteners are a detriment to one’s health and that drinking less milk isn’t necessarily a bad idea, provided you eat certain foods.

‘Americans are consuming billions of gallons of milk a year, presumably under the assumption that their bones would crumble without them,’ Ludwig wrote in an article published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Got milk: Supermarkets are chock full of milk, which Americans down by the billions of gallons per year

US government recommendations of three glasses of milk a day are what Ludwig is crusading against, especially low-fat chocolate milk.

‘The worst possible situation is reduced-fat chocolate milk: you take out the fat, it’s less tasty,’ Ludwig wrote in the article. "’So to get kids to drink 3 cups a day, you get this sugar-sweetened beverage.’

On cup of the school lunch staple has 158 calories, of which 64 come from solid fats and added sugars, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. A cup of unsweetened, low-fat 1% milk has only 102 calories, of which 18 come from solid fats.

Choose wisely: Low-fat chocolate milk is not a healthy substitute for plain low-fat milk, and is best to avoid, according to Harvard's David Ludwig

Though many Americans drink reduced (2%) or low-fat milk, many are under the false impression that drinking sweetened milk or yogurt is a way to avoid saturated fat and have a better tasting product. They are misguided, and actually doing more bad than good, according to Ludwig.

Citing numerous other calcium-rich foods, Ludwig - who is also the director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children’s Hospital - argues that people with high-quality diets may be able to cut their consumption of milk in half, if not completely.

Less is more: Some people might be better off drinking little to no milk, depending on their diet

‘On a gram for gram basis, cooked kale has more calcium than milk. Sardines, nuts, seeds, beans, green leafy vegetables are all sources of calcium,” wrote Ludwig.

For those who prefer their calcium in solid green form, one cup of cooked kale has 94 milligrams and a cup of cooked spinach has 245 milligrams of the bone-fortifying nutrient, according to the USDA. One cup of low-fat milk has 314 milligrams.

Greens: Kale is high in calcium compared to other foods, those who eat large amounts of it can cut milk consumption

Better: A cup of cooked spinach has almost as much calcium as a glass of milk, those who eat more and can drink less milk

With children usually not too keen on the greens, milk is probably still a safe bet, but leave out the chocolate and other flavors.

‘For a child or an adult – but especially a child - eating a poor quality diet, three cups a day of milk may be the most helpful thing,’ Ludwig wrote.

The rest of us can cut our milk consumption from three glasses of milk per day to between zero and three, depending on how much other calcium loaded food we eat, according to Ludwig.