A group of physicians is challenging the scientific validity of the milk industry's claim that its products help people lose weight. The physicians argue that the assertion is based primarily on the clinical research of one scientist who is financed by the Dairy Council, and General Mills. The group, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, has filed petitions with the Federal Trade Commission and FDA claiming that the association between dairy products and weight loss is false and misleading.

The research concludes that a person will not lose weight by merely drinking more milk. The research was done on people who ate 500 fewer calories a day than they would normally and that dairy was a supplemental aid in weight loss and body fat reduction.

Another dairy group, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA), stands by the research done by the Dairy Council and General Mills. "We are extremely conservative and careful in the claims we suggest," said IDFA spokesperson Susan Ruland. "We spent years looking at what was going on in the science and what was fair to say."

The two published clinical trials listed on the Dairy Council's Web site were led by Michael Zemel, the director of the Nutrition Institute at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Zemel has disclosed that these studies were financed either by the National Dairy Council or General Mills, but he says they had no say over the results.

Meanwhile, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has been characterized as a "fringe group" that promotes vegetarianism. Dr. Neal Barnard, president of the physicians committee, says his group does advocate "a plant-based diet" and has long believed that milk is not healthy, but he says these facts should not detract from the substance of the group's petition.

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