Milk isn't just for kids.

Provocative, albeit tentative, evidence suggests that regular consumption of milk may reduce a person's risk of stroke, the third leading cause of death in the United States.

These new findings come from a 22-year follow-up of 3,150 Hawaiian men of Japanese descent, all of them 55 to 68 years old when the study began. Over the intervening years, 229 of these volunteers in the Honolulu Heart Program suffered one or more strokes, caused when a blood clot temporarily cuts off adequate supplies of blood to the brain.

Searching for lifestyle factors that might distinguish stroke victims, the analysis focused on dietary habits. "Our main goal was to look at the relationship between calcium and stroke," explains biostatistician Robert D. Abbott of the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville.

Previous studies had suggested that calcium supplements reduce high blood pressure, a leading risk factor for stroke.

In the May Stroke, Abbott and his coworkers report strong evidence that men who eschew milk (7.9 percent) have more than twice the stroke risk of those who drink 1 pint or more daily (3.7 percent). For men who drank less milk, the risks fell between those of the other groups.

Though a good source of calcium, milk provided only about one-third of this mineral in the men's diets. Because intake of the remaining two-thirds exhibited no link to risk, Abbott concludes that milk's benefits trace to factors other than calcium. Indeed, drinking milk may just identify a generally healthful lifestyle. Observes Abbott, "Those who consumed the most milk tended to be the leanest and the most physically active," both factors also linked to lowered stroke risk in this group.