The whole story

In our never ending quest to be healthy (well, that's not entirely accurate -- there's definitely an end), it's sometimes easy to consider how we look on the outside to be the paradigm of our level of fitness. This frequently ends up being the case, and in our efforts to look healthy we sometimes sacrifice opportunities to be healthy.

I was reminded of this by a small side-bar article I just read in Men's Health magazine. The piece took a look at a study conducted by researchers at the University of Hawaii, who discovered that drinking whole milk may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. Tracking the diets of about 82,000 men for a period of eight years, the researchers found that men who drank whole milk decreased their risk of prostate cancer by 12 percent over men who either didn't drink milk at all or who usually drank the low or non-fat variety.

According to the article, the researchers weren't exactly sure why this was the case, but they suspect that it may have to do with the fact that the vitamin D is fat soluble. So, this vitamin -- which has been found in previous studies to inhibit prostate tumors -- may be absorbed with greater ease by the body because whole milk obviously contains higher fat content than low and non-fat milk.