Milk and dairy products are rich in vitamin D and calcium—substances essential for building and maintaining bones. Many people therefore say that a diet rich in dairy products can help prevent osteoporosis, a disease that is linked to both environmental a

The conclusion that the argument makes is a natural one, linking from dairy products building and maintaining bones, and to osteoporosis and how dairy products may actually increase the risk of the disease. However, the argument also makes various assumptions based on flimsy heresay, and quite a lot of evidence would need to be gathered to be able to correctly analyze what is truly going on with the results.

The argument’s conclusion that dairy products may actually increase the risk of osteoporosis is a very faulty one for several reasons, the most glaring being the population studied to find those results. The paragraph mentions that a “large number of people” were studied but the specific number of people would need to be known in order to make such an argument. There’s no comparison as to how big “large” is in this case. In reality, maybe 100 people were analyzed and that seems like a large number, but really, it may be only a very tiny portion of the population. Going even further than that, it says that the sample size was large, but it doesn’t make any mention of how large the portion of that sample that had bone fractures was. Maybe only a very tiny portion of people self-reported that they had bone fractures, and maybe many others who also constantly consume dairy products were not and did not report such fractures. There are various flaws in the explanation of the sample, and much more would need to be gathered to see how generalizable it would be to the population or if it’s even of any importance. If the evidence pointed to it being a very small portion of the sample that reported such behavior in contrast to others who also consistently consumed dairy products, then the argument would not hold.

The argument also makes the assumption that the dairy products are what is causing the bone fracture. One would need to know where the sample of people is located, and where those who reported fractures live. In reality, maybe those who consistently consume dairy products do so because they live in farms, and maybe the environment in farmlife is what is causing osteoporosis (as the paragraph itself says, that the disease can be caused by environmental factors). If so, the argument would be considerably weakened because consuming dairy products wouldn’t be directly related to the fractures. Related to that, because the disease is known to be related to genetic factors, perhaps those who consistently consume dairy products were already susceptible to developing the disease, therefore what they consumed had no bearing on anything. Perhaps evidence of the sample’s medical history, and any genetic history, would shine a light on more information regarding that, although it’d be more difficult to attain such specific materials.

Particularly useful information that would also need to be known is whether the fractures in the people are actually osteoporsosos. Perhaps such bone fractures are symptomatic of other diseases. If so, maybe one would still need to look further to analyze whether the dairy products really did cause the fractures, but even so, if it’s another disease and not specifically osteoporosis and the argument’s conclusion is completely invalid. An extensive and thorough examination and research on any disease that can cause bone fracture would need to be gathered.

Another mistake that the argument made was in using words interchangeably. The results were based on people who “consistently” consume dairy products, not necessarily that they consume them “more”. The argument, however, does make its conclusion based on those who get more dairy in their diet. What exactly “consistently” means for the purpose of the study is not known. Perhaps some of those individuals who got bone fractures ate dairy three times a day, every day, while another ate dairy once a week, every week for years. Both of these people are consistently consuming it, but at very different quantities. Therefore, the conclusion would not be accurate, and so more evidence regarding exactly how much amount in dairy those who developed the fractures would need to be obtained, because there may be a great inconsistency in quantity there.

There are quite a lot of assumptions made by the argument due to an assumption about the entire study and about the disease, but quite a lot more information and specificity in details need to be gathered in order to be able to make such a grand generalization about such a real disease like osteoporosis, and before contradicting what many studies have already found about dairy products.