Introduction: Osteoporosis affects over 200 million people worldwide causing nearly 9 million fractures annually, with more than half in America and Europe.
Objectives: This meta-analysis was conducted to investigate whether low milk intake is associated with an increased risk of fractures by summarizing all the available evidence.
Methods: Relevant studies were identified by searching the PubMed and EMBASE databases up to June 2020. The pooled relative risks with 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
Results: In a meta-regression analysis of 20 included studies (11 cohort and 9 case-control studies), a higher milk intake was not associated with a reduction in the total fracture risk in both sexes (OR 0.95, 95% CI: 0.84- 1.08), either in cohort (OR 0.91; 95% CI: 0.79-1.05) or case-control studies (OR 1.09; 95% CI: 0.82-1.44), as well as separately in men (OR 0.87; 95% CI: 0.71-1.07) and women (OR 0.95; 95% CI: 0.80-1.13).
Conclusion: Higher milk consumption is not associated with fracture risk reduction and should not be recommended for fracture prevention.
Keywords: fracture; meta-analysis; milk.