Skim Milk Versus Soy Milk: Head to Head
from Dr Michael Greger's newsletter (http://www.veganmd.org/newsletters.html)

Last month researchers in Brazil studied the effects of skim cow milk consumption compared to soy milk consumption using what's called a double-blind randomized crossover study. People were randomly split into two groups and given four cups of either soy milk or skim milk to drink every day. The milks were identically packaged and flavored such that neither the research subjects nor the researchers knew who was drinking which. Then at six weeks the skim milk group was secretly switched to soy and vice versa. So after 3 months each participant had spent 6 weeks on soy and six on skim in random order. The codes were broken and data tallied: Soy won hands down.

When the subjects were drinking soy milk, their bad cholesterol went down and their good cholesterol went up (exactly the reverse of what happened when they were drinking milk from a cow). The amount of rancid fat circulating in their blood stream (a further risk factor for heart disease) was also reduced drinking the soy milk (and marginally higher drinking cow milk).

The American Heart Association recommends people switch from whole milk to skim milk. But this new research suggests that it would be much healthier for people to wean themselves from bovine milk altogether and switch from veal milk to real milk--soy milk.[12]

[12] Nutrition 20(2004):200.