A new review supports a possible link between drinking milk in high doses and a higher risk of ovarian cancer.

Researchers in Sweden reviewed 21 previous international studies into a suspected link between the disease and dairy products.

"This gives some evidence that milk might be linked to increase risk of ovarian cancer, but that more research is needed," said study author Susanna Larsson of the National Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.




Larsson concluded that prospective cohort studies, in which people are followed forward in time, support the hypothesis that high intakes of dairy foods and lactose may increase the risk of ovarian cancer.

These studies did not identify women with a genetic susceptibility for ovarian cancer.

"We don't know how much milk is too much for women with genetic predisposition," Larsson said.

Case-control studies, a less rigorous study design that looks at diets at the time of diagnosis, did not point to a link, the review team reports in the Aug. 5, 2005 in the International Journal of Cancer.

Larsson does not suggest women stop drinking milk, pointing out that other research shows milk has health benefits.

The B.C. dairy industry agrees the review shouldn't make women afraid to drink milk. B.C. Dairy Foundation spokesperson Sydney Massey questions some of the research.

"Well, you can show an association between wearing skirts and breast cancer, but it doesn't mean that wearing skirts causes breast cancer. It just means that there's something here we have to take a look at."

Salley Errey is a registered nutrition consultant who works with cancer patients at Vancouver's Centre for Integrated Healing. She's been monitoring studies linking milk to cancers for two decades.

"It's not really a surprise to me," said Errey. "It's a key message I've been putting across for several years, in that you don't have to avoid [milk] altogether, but just checking in on how much you're consuming."

Errey, who counsels eating food in its most natural form, also suggests people get calcium from other foods.

There are 15 per cent fewer Canadian drinking milk now than in the late 1980s, a decline that the dairy industry calls a "crisis."

The next edition of the Canada Food Guide is expected to put less prominence on drinking milk for health.