Eating a little dairy might be good for you, but eating a lot might not help—or could even hurt—your health; the sweet spot isn’t the same for everyone.

People who eat more dairy—like milk, cheese, and yogurt—tend to have a slightly lower chance of dying from heart disease than those who eat very little dairy.

People who drink whole milk regularly may be a bit more likely to die from any cause, heart disease, or cancer than those who drink skim or low-fat milk — but this doesn’t mean milk is the direct cause.

Eating lots of full-fat dairy like cheese, butter, or cream seems to be linked to a higher chance of dying early, no matter which kind you choose—so it’s probably not the dairy itself, but something common in all of them, like saturated fat or hormones, that’s causing the problem.

Eating a lot of full-fat dairy like cheese and butter might be linked to a higher chance of dying from cancers other than breast cancer — and it could be because it harms your heart or metabolism, not just because it feeds cancer.

Eating dairy products like milk and cheese doesn’t seem to make breast cancer come back or kill more women from breast cancer, but people who eat a lot of dairy tend to die sooner from other causes — probably because of the fat in dairy, not the dairy itself.