Milk helps ease arthritis symptoms in women: Study

Milk can fight arthritis of the knee in women, but the same can't be said for cheese or yogurt, a new study says.

The more low-fat or fat-free milk women drank, the slower the progression of osteoarthritis of the knee, according to the new study, that involved 1,260 women and almost 900 men with knee arthritis. Milk consumption did not show the same benefit for men, reports Newsmax Health. 

Researchers led by Dr. Bing Lu of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston also found that eating higher amounts of cheese had the opposite effect, speeding the progression of knee arthritis in women.

Taking in higher amounts of yogurt had no effect on knee arthritis in either women or men, the study found.

The study, published April 7 in Arthritis Care & Research, "is the largest study to investigate the impact of dairy intake in the progression of knee osteoarthritis," Lu said in a journal news release. He believes that, based on these and other findings, "milk consumption plays an important role in bone health."

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