London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 08, 2025

Drinking more milk could help ageing brains stay healthy, study says

Drinking more milk could help ageing brains stay healthy, study says

As a society, we tend to think of milk as a drink that’s best enjoyed by kids.

And that’s not technically wrong: cow’s milk has the best nutritional benefits for growing children and, once kids grow into adults, they pretty much lose the capacity to digest the dairy drink properly.

There’s also a particular social awkwardness linked to drinking milk as adults instead of, say, a cup of tea, coffee or even a can of Coke.

But older adults might have more to gain from drinking milk than we think, according to a new study published by the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.

The research, conducted by a team of scientists at the University of Kansas (KU) Medical Center in the US, found that older adults who drink three cups of dairy milk every day have higher levels of a powerful antioxidant which can protect the brain from ageing and ageing-related diseases.

This antioxidant, called glutathione, or GSH, has the power to prevent our brain from being “corroded” by free radicals and other oxidants which are normally released when our brain converts nutrients into energy.

Even though it sounds horrifying, this is a natural process which the KU scientists describe as similar to “an old car that rusts” and which experts have linked to many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

As we age, levels of GHS in our brain decrease, and we gradually lose this ally protecting our brain.


What did the study find?


The scientists analysed 73 adults aged between 60 and 89 who typically consumed less than 1.5 servings of dairy per day and split them into two groups: one, whose milk intake did not change, and another who was asked to increase their milk consumption to three cups a day (of low-fat 1 per cent milk, specifically) for three months.

At the end of the experiment, scientists found that the group who drank three cups of dairy milk a day had experienced an average 5 per cent increase in GSH levels in their brains, and a 7 per cent increase of the antioxidant in the parietal region of their brains, while the group who had kept drinking less milk had experienced no change at all.

“It's exciting that something as simple as drinking milk can increase GSH because it’s not a drug, it’s just a simple food,” said Dr Debra Sullivan, professor and chair of the Department of Dietetics and Nutrition in the School of Health Professions at KU Medical Center and one of the authors on the study.

“And three cups a day is actually what is recommended by the US Dietary Guidelines”.


How much milk do we normally consume?


Three cups a day sounds like an awful lot of milk - even for the US, a country which has traditionally made drinking milk part of American life.

But consumption of milk, which peaked in 1945 in the US, has actually been declining in the country since the 1970s, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture, and the countries which consume the most dairy milk are now, in fact, in Europe.

According to World Population Review, the countries which consume the most milk in the world are Finland (430.76 kg/capita), Montenegro (349.21 kg/capita), the Netherlands (341.47 kg/capita), Sweden (341.23 kg/capita), Switzerland (318.69 kg/capita), Albania (303.72 kg/capita), Lithuania (295.46 kg/capita), Ireland (291.86 kg/capita), Kazakhstan (288.12 kg/capita) and Estonia (284.65 kg/capita).

It’s not by chance that there are so many consumers of milk in Europe: the dairy sector is the second-largest agricultural sector in the European Union.


Should we all start drinking more milk?


It’s important to note, at this point, that the KU study received funding by the US National Dairy Council, although researchers said they were not given any input or direction in their study.

In fact, the researchers said they were actually quite surprised by the study’s results.

“I was thinking fruits and vegetables would be highly correlated with antioxidants in the brain,” said study’s author In-Young Choi.

“But instead it was dairy, and among the dairy foods, it was milk. That was really surprising”.

So should we all start drinking more milk? The answer might be a bit more complicated than the American study would initially seem to suggest.

Dairy is often recommended to older people, as the high content of calcium in cow’s milk and other products is said to fortify bones and keep them healthy.

But studies have also found an increased risk of heart-related diseases in people consuming dairy against those sticking to a vegan diet and even an increased risk of bone fractures and mortality in relation to excessive milk consumption.

While plant-based alternatives can’t normally give you the same nutrients dairy milk can, you can easily find those in other vegan food, or reach for fortified plant-based milk on the supermarket’s shelf.

KU researchers said that more research is needed to figure out why exactly milk consumption was found to increase GSH levels in the brain, whether this improves brain functions and whether the level of fat in milk makes a difference at all.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×