Milk is among those product that we would find in most shopping baskets in most stores at any time. People drink it straight and use it for cooking. But which one is better – whole, low fat or nonfat? Which one will help you live longer?

Biological age is a concept, which allows calculating someone’s physiological rate of aging. It takes into account a variety of factors, including environmental and lifestyle ones. Although we all age, some of us are getting old quicker because of the choices they make. Such as drinking fatter milk.

Scientists at the Brigham Young University decided to see if there is a link between biological age and milk consumption. This research involved 5,834 U.S. adults. Scientists asked them various questions about how often they consume milk and what kind of milk they prefer. Interestingly, almost half of the respondents said they drink milk daily. Then scientists performed some medical exams, focusing on the length of telomeres.

Telomeres are the endg caps of human chromosomes. With age they are becoming shorter and shorter, rendering some of our abilities reduced. Scientists found that those people who drank 2% milk in comparison with those who drank 2% milk has telomeres that were shorter by 69 base pairs. This is a huge difference, which translates into 4.5 years in the biological clock. It got even worse to those who were drinking whole milk – their telomeres were shorter by 145 base pairs.

But does this problem affect a lot of people? Well, not as many as it would have years ago. Some decades ago many people believed that you should drink milk every day to remain healthy – nowadays this is more of a controversial topic. Nearly half of respondents do drink milk every day, while around 25% enjoy it weekly. Another 13% does not drink any cow milk. Nearly a third of the people drink whole milk, 30% of the participants choose 2% milk, another 10% consum 1% milk. And, finally, around 17% choose nonfat milk for their consumption.

Many people nowadays believe that adults shouldn’t drink milk due to it being basically just fat with water and some minerals. Larry Tucker, author of the study, said: “You’d think, ‘Whoa, everybody should be drinking more milk.’ If someone said do the opposite, I could also do that. At the very least, the findings of this study are definitely worth pondering. Maybe there’s something here that requires a little more attention.”

So no milk for adults? Well, no – those who didn’t drink milk at all had even shorter telomeres than those who drank 1%. You just have to choose what kind of milk you are drinking. Also, you shouldn’t drink it every day, probably.

Source: Brigham Young University