Milk Does a Colon Good

Dairy farmers all over the world are smiling because of a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Turns out, milk--not just calcium, but milk specifically--can reduce a person's risk of developing colorectal cancer.

According to the study, the magic number is two glasses a day. Researchers found that on average, drinking 16 ounces of milk a day reduced the risk of developing colorectal cancer by 12%.

To come up with those numbers, they examined ten studies involving more than half a million people, 5,000 of whom had developed colorectal cancer.

Cheese and yogurt didn't seem to have much effect, but drinking milk decreased cancers of the distal colon (the end of the colon) and the rectum.

_{Source: Cho, E. and Smith-Warner, S. "Dairy Foods, Calcium, and Colorectal Cancer: A Pooled Analysis of 10 Cohort Studies." 96.13 (Jul. 2004): 1015-1022. 25 Aug. 2006.}