Children who eat dairy products live longer

Research based on tracing more than 4,000 UK children from a 1930s study found that such a diet can protect against stroke and other causes of death.

The report, compiled by researchers from the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Brisbane in Australia, and the Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, has been published on www.bmj.com.

"Children whose family diet in the 1930s was high in calcium were at reduced risk of death from stroke," the report says.

"Furthermore, childhood diets rich in dairy or calcium were associated with lower all-cause mortality in adulthood."

The researchers found that despite popular belief there was no clear evidence that intake of dairy products was associated with causing coronary heart disease or stroke deaths.

Meanwhile childhood calcium intake was linked with a decreased likelihood of dying from a stroke but not heart disease.

Children who were in the group that had the highest calcium and dairy product intake were found to have lower mortality rates than those in the lower intake groups.