Lactose intolerants at lower risk of certain cancers: study

People with lactose intolerance are at lower risk of suffering from lung, breast and ovarian cancers, according to a new study.
"We found that people with lactose intolerance, who typically consume low amounts of milk and other dairy products, have a reduced risk of lung, breast and ovarian cancers", said Jianguang Ji, Associate Professor at Lund University in Sweden.
"The risk of cancer was not reduced in relatives of people with lactose intolerance, which indicates that protection against these cancers is related to diet. However, it would be wrong to conclude that milk is a risk factor for these cancers," said Ji, also a researcher at the Centre for Primary Care Research in Malmo.

There are large differences in the incidence of breast and ovarian cancers between different countries.
Their incidence is highest in North America, Western Europe and the Nordic countries, and lowest in East Asia and Central African countries.
Studies of immigrants and twins suggest this worldwide variation is more down to environmental factors than to genetic or ethnic factors.

Lifestyle factors such as high consumption of milk and other dairy products have been suspected to contribute to the high incidence of breast and ovarian cancers in North America and Western Europe, researchers said.
"In order to investigate this unanswered question we adopted a novel approach," said Ji.

"We investigated whether low consumption of milk and other dairy products protects lactose-intolerant people against breast and ovarian cancers.
"Since epidemiological and animal studies show that milk consumption and lung cancer risk are both associated with the protein IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor 1), we also investigated lung cancer," Ji added.
"Using nationwide data from two Swedish registers (the Inpatient Register and the Outpatient Register) we identified 22,788 individuals with lactose intolerance and examined their risk of suffering from lung, breast and ovarian cancers.
The risks of lung cancer, breast cancer and ovarian cancer were significantly lower in people with lactose intolerance compared to people without lactose intolerance, irrespective of country of birth and gender, said Ji.

"By contrast, the risks in their siblings and parents were the same as in the general population. This suggests that the lower cancer risk in people with lactose intolerance may be due to their diet," said Ji.
Factors such as lower calorie intake of because of low milk consumption and protective factors in plant-based milk drinks may contribute to the observed negative association between lactose intolerance and the studied cancers.
"We must interpret these results with caution because the association we found is insufficient to conclude a causative effect," said Ji.