The risk of death from stroke is much lower for people who ate a calcium-rich diet as children. So says a study that follows up on a 1930s British survey of children's eating habits, growth, health and living conditions.

The Carnegie Survey of Diet and Health (also known as the Boyd Orr survey) during 1937-39 assessed seven-day household food inventories of 1,343 families in England and Scotland. The children averaged eight years old at the start of the survey, within a range of four to 11 years.

Surprising Results for Adults

In a follow-up study 65 years later, a team of researchers from Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Brisbane, Australia, and the University of Bristol interviewed 4,374 people who participated as children in the 1930s study.

A diet rich in milk, cheese and butter did not lead to a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease, the new study revealed. Rather than health risks, children who consumed high levels of calcium from dairy foods benefited by suffering a lower death rate from strokes.

The study found that consuming more than 400 mg of calcium per day was associated with a 40 to 60 percent lower mortality from stroke than diets lower in calcium.

Consuming 400 mg of calcium requires drinking a little more than half a pint of milk or eating 50 grams of cheddar cheese. Drinking milk accounted for an average of 94 percent of the children's dairy intake in the 1930's.

Calcium Found in Many Foods

Young people aged nine to 18 need 1,300 milligrams of calcium daily to meet the adequate intake set by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. While yogurt, milk and cheese make up the richest sources of calcium in diets in the United States (about 300 to 400 grams per serving), nondairy sources also can contribute to calcium intake.

Serve these foods to help your children eat enough calcium:

• Chinese cabbage, kale. broccoli and the ever-popular spinach
• Orange juice (calcium fortified)
• Tofu
• Salmon

Ultimately, the follow-up study concluded that "childhood diets rich in dairy or calcium were associated with lower all-cause mortality in adulthood." In the end, a glass of milk here, a slice of salmon there goes a long way in living a healthy life.