Could even high-fat dairy be good for you?
Dairy foods might be your ticket to better heart health, even if youre drinking whole milk and eating rich cheeses, a new study suggests. The study couldnt prove cause-and-effect, but folks who ate three servings of dairy per day had an overall lower risk of death during the study period than people who ate no dairy. They also had a lower risk of stroke and death from heart disease, researchers found. The benefit was linked to both whole-fat and low-fat forms of dairy products, said lead researcher Mahshid Dehghan. She is an investigator of nutrition epidemiology with McMaster Universitys Population Health Research Institute in Hamilton, Ontario. Based on the findings, she concludes that up to three servings of dairy per day lowers risk of death and cardiovascular disease, regardless of fat.
One standard serving of dairy amounts to about 8 ounces of milk or yogurt, half-an-ounce of cheese, or a teaspoon of butter, according to the study.
The research received no funding from the dairy industry. Despite the new findings, the American Heart Association would still urge people to stick to low-fat dairy, said spokeswoman Jo Ann Carson, a professor of clinical nutrition with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
We know in general getting more saturated fat raises your LDL cholesterol, and thats the number one risk factor for heart disease, especially in the United States, Carson said.
Dehghan pointed out that some people avoid dairy because of its saturated-fat content, because fat has more calories and because saturated fat has been linked to higher bad LDL cholesterol levels.
But in doing so, they are missing out on other important nutrients that dairy provides, such as amino acids, vitamins and minerals, she added.
Dairy products contain a range of potentially beneficial compounds, Dehghan said. We are suggesting the net effect of dairy intake on health outcome is more important than looking solely at one single nutrient.
To study the impact of dairy on heart health, the researchers examined data from over 136,000 people, aged 35 to 70, in 21 countries. People filled out a food questionnaire at the start of the study, and then were followed for an average of nine years.
People in North America and Europe had the highest dairy consumption -- more than four servings per day, on average. South Asia, Southeast Asia, China and Africa all had less than one serving per day, on average.
Compared to people who ate an average three servings of dairy per day, those who ate no dairy had higher rates of overall death (3.4 per cent versus 5.6 per cent, respectively), heart-related deaths (0.9 per cent versus 1.6 per cent), major heart disease (3.5 per cent versus 4.9 per cent), and stroke (1.2 per cent versus 2.9 per cent) during the study period.
Our results showed an inverse association between total dairy and mortality and major cardiovascular disease, Dehghan said. The risk of stroke was markedly lower with higher consumption of dairy. The benefit held even among those who ate only whole-fat dairy. Compared with those who ate less than half-a-serving daily, people who had three servings a day of whole-fat dairy had lower rates of death (4.4 per cent versus 3.3 per cent, respectively) and heart disease (5 per cent versus 3.7 per cent) during the study. Carson noted that dairy products contain potassium and magnesium, minerals linked to lower blood pressure.
HealthDay
