Vegan choices still best for calcium in childhood

Green soybeans: a favorite Asian snack that could
protect against cancer.

Does high childhood dairy intake reduce risk for disease later in life? New findings released this week don't really answer that question. 

Researchers from Australia and England found a modest protective effect of childhood calcium and dairy intake against stroke and all-cause mortality in adulthood. They used dietary data collected 70 years ago—between 1937 and 1939—among 1,343 families in England and Scotland. The health of the children from these families was followed over the next 65 years.

As with all epidemiologic studies, the findings are about associations between factors, not cause and effect. We don’t know whether consuming more dairy in childhood actually reduced risk for stroke and other causes of death, or if dairy is a marker for some other factor.

In fact, the children with higher dairy intakes also had higher intakes of fruit. They lived in families that spent more money on food. During the Depression in Great Britain, a higher intake of dairy foods may have been a marker for better overall nutrition and a more healthful lifestyle due to higher income.

But what is more interesting is a study published two years ago by the same researchers, using data from these same 1,343 families. This time, they looked at how dairy intake correlated with cancer risk. They discovered that those who consumed the most dairy in childhood were much more likely to develop colon cancer later in life. Not only that, but when the researchers controlled for calcium intake, they found the effect was even stronger. This suggests that the risk for cancer has something to do with compounds in dairy other than calcium—and it implies that getting calcium from other foods might be safest.

There is growing evidence that what children consume will impact their risk for cancer and other chronic disease later in life. Among the most interesting studies are those in Asian countries which show that girls who consume the most soy in childhood and adolescence have the lowest risk for breast cancer as adults.

None of these data allow us to draw firm conclusions about diet and risk for disease; they are all epidemiologic studies. But there is good reason to believe that replacing dairy foods with other calcium sources in children’s diets—perhaps especially with calcium-fortified soymilk—could protect their lifelong health.