From the perspective of the status quo, it was the kind of “news” that’s best ignored. So that’s exactly what most newspapers, radio, and TV outlets did—even though the revelation appeared in a respected, peer-reviewed science journal and the subject concerned the health of millions of children and young adults.

In March, the journal Pediatrics published an article titled “Calcium, Dairy Products, and Bone Health in Children and Young Adults: A Re-evaluation of the Evidence.” The scientists who did the review belong to the Washington, D.C.–based organization Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. PCRM members are often dismissively referred to as animal-rights advocates. They de-scribe themselves as “doctors and laypersons working together for compassionate and effective medical practice, research, and health promotion.”

However you view them, you can’t knock their methodology. The scientists examined 58 published studies on the relationship between calcium, dairy products, and bone health. After excluding studies that did not control for exercise, weight, puberty, or vitamin D—all things that influence bones—they concluded that there is “scant evidence” that dairy products promote bone health in children.

That conclusion contradicts everything we’re told about cow juice, first by our mothers and then by the government and dairy industry. Milk is listed as one of the four basic food groups by the Canada Food Guide, which recommends that teens have three to four milk servings a day, adults two to three. The U.S. government recently boosted its milk recommendation from two cups to three cups a day for everyone above age nine.

Milk is touted as Mother Nature’s near-perfect food. Indeed, the current B.C. Dairy Foundation ad campaign—aimed at kids and teens—features a thawed-out caveman who now drinks milk. Why? “Because, of course,” the ad says, “it’s always been survival of the fittest.” (The ads, found at drinkmilk.ca [1], are very clever and screamingly funny.)

But, you’ve got to wonder if milk is really essential. Physical activity and vitamin D are just as critical to building bones as calcium is. True, there are few food sources for vitamin D and it is added to milk. The main source, however, is the sun on our skin, a good reason to spend some time outdoors every day, preferably half-naked. (See Loving the Sun [1])

Being active and being outdoors could partially explain what’s known as the calcium paradox. That’s the puzzle of why societies that consume the most dairy also have the highest rates of osteoporosis and broken bones. People in Asia, for instance, drink almost no milk and have a very low incidence of bone fractures.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell is professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University. He headed a massive epidemiological study of the traditional Chinese diet, disease, and lifestyle called “The China Project.” From 1983 to 1990, Cornell researchers visited more than 10,000 people in 130 villages across China from the southern coast to the Gobi desert. They found a population that relied on plant-based sources such as vegetables and whole grains for their calcium. The populations also had much less heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity than North Americans. (See Campbell’s recent book, The China Study: the Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted.

“Dairy consumption in China was essentially zero for most of their history,” Campbell says during an interview from Ithaca, New York. “And, of course, according to the dogma and the assumptions that we have in the West, we would assume that, if dairy consumption is not high enough, we’re going to run the risk of osteoporosis. It certainly is not true.”

And then there’s the argument that humans, like other animals, were never designed to drink milk—especially from another species—after they’d finished their mothers’ milk. If your ancestors came from Great Britain, Scandinavia, France, Germany, or the Netherlands, you likely can drink cow milk without an unpleasant reaction. If they came from Eastern Europe, Russia, Greece, Italy, or another Mediterranean country, you may or may not be able to. But if they come from just about anywhere else on the globe, chances are you can’t consume dairy without a loud protest from your body. People who are lactose intolerant lack the enzyme needed to digest milk. Symptoms of lactose intolerance include cramping, bloating, gas, stomach pain, and diarrhea.

A few years ago, scientists identified the gene responsible for lactose intolerance. Because it is found in all lactose-intolerant people across distant ethnic groups, they deduced that it is a very old gene and is, in fact, the original form. When humans migrated north and started milking cows as a survival strategy 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, the gene mutated to allow them to digest milk.

Lactose intolerance is the biological norm. No caveman ever touched cow milk.