SWEDEN – A new study suggest that high intakes of dairy products, and specifically lactose, could increase the risk of ovarian cancer.

The study was of women aged 38 to 76 years old, and found that women who consumed four servings of dairy products a day or more had a risk of serious ovarian cancer. The frequency was twice that of women who consumed less than two portions a day.

Milk was the dairy product with the strongest positive association with serious ovarian cancer, found the study headed by Susanna Larsson of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.