Association between milk and yogurt intake and mortality: a community-based cohort study (Yamagata study)

Abstract

Background

Dairy products are known as health-promoting foods. This study prospectively examined the association between milk and yogurt intake and mortality in a community-based population.

Methods

The study population comprised of 14,264 subjects aged 40–74 years who participated in an annual health checkup. The frequency of yogurt and milk intake was categorized as none (< 1/month), low (< 1/week), moderate (1–6/week), and high (> 1/day) intake. The association between yogurt and milk intake and total, cardiovascular, and cancer-related mortalities was determined using the Cox proportional hazards model.

Results

During the follow-up period, there were 265 total deaths, 40 cardiovascular deaths and 90 cancer-related deaths. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that the total mortality in high/moderate/low yogurt intake and moderate/low milk intake groups was lower than that in none group (log-rank, P < 0.01). In the multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis adjusted for possible confounders, the hazard ratio (HR) for total mortality significantly decreased in high/moderate yogurt intake group (HR: 0.62, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.42–0.91 for high intake, HR: 0.70, 95%CI: 0.49–0.99 for moderate intake) and moderate milk intake group (HR: 0.67, 95% CI: 0.46–0.97) compared with the none yogurt and milk intake groups. A similar association was observed for cancer-related mortality, but not for cardiovascular mortality.

Conclusions

Our study showed that yogurt and milk intake was independently associated with a decrease in total and cancer-related mortalities in the Japanese population.