{"id":488876,"date":"2026-02-18T23:23:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/488876\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T23:23:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:23:10","slug":"drinking-milk-after-exercising-will-help-protect-your-bones-as-you-age-new-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/488876\/","title":{"rendered":"Drinking milk after exercising will help protect your bones as you age, new study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drinking milk after exercising could help protect older adults from life threatening fractures, promising new research suggests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the global population ages, maintaining muscle mass and bone density has become a major health challenge, with more than three million people in the UK living with osteoporosis.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But far more than that are expected to be at risk, with up to 40 per cent of over-50s thought to have osteopenia, the earliest stage of bone thinning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Engaging in regular exercise, particularly resistance training, has long been considered one of the most effective interventions against musculoskeletal disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But now Chinese scientists say pairing a strength based exercise routine with an after workout glass of milk could help prevent bone thinning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Protein has long been linked with bone health as it helps boost calcium absorption\u00a0 which is crucial for bone strength, reducing the risk of breaking a bone from a fall later in life.<\/p>\n

The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging<\/a>, compared the efficacy of cow’s milk and soy milk as easily consumable protein sources.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A total of 82 healthy adults aged 60 and above who were free from any medical conditions that would impact their protein intake were included in the final study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Post-exercise <\/p>\n

Post-exercise milk could help protect bone density in adults over 60<\/p>\n

All participants completed an eight-week exercise programme, comprising of three sessions of resistance and balance training a week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Participants were then split into one of four groups: exercise only; exercise with nutrition education; exercise with nutrition education and cow’s milk supplementation and; exercise with nutrition education and soy milk supplementation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Groups one and two received no additional dietary intervention and ate as normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Participant’s in the cow’s milk group drank 240ml of low fat milk 30 minutes to an hour after finishing their workout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Participants drinking soy milk received slightly less, to ensure both groups were getting around 7-8g of protein per session.<\/p>\n

These groups also ate 60g of steamed sweet potato after each training session to balance out the protein with carbohydrates.<\/p>\n

Nutritional education sessions were held weekly and focused on healthy eating patterns with adequate protein intake, oral health, and injury prevention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After eight weeks, all groups showed significant improvements in walking speed, suggesting that regular exercise improves mobility and performance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Women <\/p>\n

Women are at higher risk of osteoporosis due to rapid bone loss after the first few years of the menopause\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those who made no changes to their diet, but exercised regularly experienced significant improvements in handgrip strength and moving from sitting to standing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This, the researchers said, indicates enhanced neuromuscular function and lower-limb strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the greatest improvements were seen in participants who drank a glass of cow’s milk after exercising and attended weekly nutrition classes.<\/p>\n

These participants demonstrated significant improvements not only in hand-grip strength, but how quickly they could stand up from a chair and sit back down five times in a row, and walking speed over a six-meter distance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers said: ‘This indicates that combining exercise with milk supplementation may be more beneficial for muscle function than soy milk supplementation.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notably, handgrip strength – which has been associated with a range of health outcomes, from type 2 diabetes to depression – in group 2 who attended nutrition classes but didn’t change their diet was significantly lower.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This suggests that knowledge-based interventions alone are not enough, without accompanying diet changes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers concluded: ‘This study suggests that combining resistance exercises with immediate\u00a0 post-exercise supplementation of protein-rich whole foods, particularly milk, may improve bone health and physical function in community-dwelling older adults.’\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, they acknowledged that despite its strengths, the study has several limitations including its relatively short duration.<\/p>\n

Bone thinning is diagnosed with a Dexa scan, which measures how much bone mineral \u2013 mainly calcium \u2013 you have compared with a healthy person in their 20s. A score of zero is normal. Between -1 and -2.5 indicates osteopenia, while anything below -2.5 is classed as osteoporosis.<\/p>\n

Over time, osteoporosis weakens bones making them fragile and more likely to break. It develops slowly over years and s often only diagnosed when a fall causes a bone to break.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Treatment is based on taking medicine to strengthen the bones, but regular exercise, healthy eating, supplementing vitamin D and giving up smoking and cutting back on alcohol can all help support bone health.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drinking milk after exercising could help protect older adults from life threatening fractures, promising new research suggests.\u00a0 As…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,100,538,137],"class_list":["post-488876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dailymail","tag-fitness","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}