New bowel cancer hope?

Drinking a pint of milk a day may offer significant protection against bowel cancer, a new study has found.

The high calcium content can reduce the risk of getting the disease by 12 per cent, it is claimed. Scientists monitored the diets of 500,000 people, of whom 5,000 were later diagnosed with bowel cancer. They found those who drank milk every day were at far lower risk.

Researcher Eunyoung Cho said: 'This supports the concept that milk and calcium intake reduces the risk of bowel cancer.' But the study at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston found other dairy products failed to offer the same protection.