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# Milk boosts prostate cancer risk, studies suggest
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/milk_boosts_prostate_cancer_risk_1229110656/
- Published: 2011-12-29T19:55:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T15:46:13.000Z
- Description: Following 8,894 Icelandic men for 24 years, Johanna Torfadottir's team found men who drank milk daily as teenagers but stopped later were three times as likely to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. The study is observational and proves no cause.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Cancer, Avoiding Illness, Prostate Cancer, Milk, Estrogen, #vivvo-import

By David Liu, PHD

Thursday Dec 29, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- Men who drank too much milk in adolescence are at elevated risk for advanced prostate cancer, according to a new study in the Dec 20, 2011 issue of American Journal of Epidemiology.

The study led by Johanna E. Torfadottir of University of Iceland in Reykjavik, Iceland and colleagues found men who drank milk daily in adolescence, but quit drinking in midlife or currently, were three times as likely as those who did not drink milk daily to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer later in life.

The researchers followed for 24 years 8,894 men born between 1907 and 1935 in certain areas of Iceland where people had different habits of drinking milk in early life. During the follow-up, 1,123 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer including 371 cases of advanced prostate cancer.

Men who spent early years particularly in the first 20 years of life in the capital area were found 29 percent less likely to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, compared with those who as teens lived in the rural areas. Among men who were born before 1920, the risk can be 64 percent higher for men in the rural areas, compared with those in the capital area where milk was scarcely available.

The study is observational and it does not prove any causal relationship between drinking milk and risk of advanced prostate cancer. However, others studies suggest that the possibility that milk boosts the risk can be real. 

Boys who were exposed to exogenous estrogen found in cow milk has been associated with increased risk of prostate cancer, according to D. Margel and N.E. Fleshner of University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who published an article in the Nov 24, 2011 issue of BMJ Open saying there is a link between extrogen exposure and risk of prostate cancer.

K. Maruyama of Department of Clinical Nursing and Pediatrics University of Yamanashi in Yamanashi, Japan and colleagues also reported in the Feb 2010 issue of Pediatrics International that "after the intake of cow milk, serum estrone (E1) and progesterone concentrations significantly increased, and serum luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone and testosterone significantly decreased in men. Urine concentrations of E1, estradiol, estriol and pregnanediol significantly increased in all adults and children."

P.L. Tate of Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina reported a study in the Nov 2011 issue of Nutrition and Cancer that demonstrated that cow-milk stimulated the growth of LNCaP prostate cancer cells in all experiments. Cow milk boosted the growth rate by 30 percent.

Prostate cancer is diagnosed in about 200,000 men each year in the United States and the disease and its complications kill about 40,000 each year in the country. The disease is generally not aggressive as other cancers. But advanced prostate cancer can be lethal.

Consumption of dairy products such as milk and cheese is more commonly used in the West than poor or developing countries. And men in the West are known to be at higher risk for prostate cancer, compared with men in the poor countries who can't afford drinking milk.