Dairy Intake and All-Cause, Cancer, and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality Risk in A Large Japanese Population: A 12-Year Follow-Up of the J-MICC Study

AIM: We examined the association between dairy intake and all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease mortality in a cohort of the general population followed up for 12 years across Japan. METHODS: We conducted a longitudinal cohort study of 79,715 participants from the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort study (57.2% women, mean age 54.7 years old). The amount of dairy (milk and yogurt) intake was determined using a validated short-food frequency questionnaire. The hazard ratio for mortality according to sex-specific tertile of dairy intake was calculated using Cox proportional hazards regression models with adjustment for potential confounding factors and dietary factors by sex. RESULTS: During the follow-up period (932,738 person-years), 3,723 participants died, including 2,088 cancer and 530 cardiovascular disease deaths. The highest tertile of total dairy intake (versus the lowest tertile) was associated with a 19% lower all-cause mortality risk (hazard ratio=0.81, 95% confidence interval: 0.70-0.92; P for trend=0.001) in women. Similarly, we observed inverse associations between milk intake and all-cause and cancer mortality risk in women, yogurt intake and cardiovascular disease risk in women, and yogurt intake and all-cause mortality risk in both sexes. CONCLUSION: A higher total dairy and milk intakes in women and yogurt intake in both sexes were associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality in the general population across Japan during the 12-year follow-up period.