Dairy consumption is associated with weight loss in animals and humans. Clinical studies in animals have shown that high dairy intakes do cause a loss of bodyfat. The fact that high calcium diets show a similar effect suggests that some or all of the weight loss effect of dairy might come from the calcium content of the food. However, dairy is a heterogenous group of foods and it is unclear as to which dairy foods are beneficial. One study investigating the effects of the calcium in yoghurt showed weight loss effect in the subjects suggesting that yoghurt is one food that has such beneficial weight loss effect (here). However, the effects of other dairy foods in humans is not so clear. One benefit of the weight loss associated with dairy consumption might be a reduction in blood pressure and a concomitant decrease in the risk of cardiovascular disease, as being overweight increases the risk of high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease considerably. Therefore, some studies have investigated the associations between dairy consumption and cardiovascular disease.
For example, in one study1, researchers investigated the association between various types of dairy foods and the risk of a heart attack in a group of over thirty thousand middle aged and elderly women. The women were followed for neary 12 years and in that time nearly fifteen hundred heart attacks occurred. When the researchers assessed the diets of the women they found that those who consumed the most total dairy had a significantly reduced risk of a heart attack compared to those who consumed the least dairy. In addition, cheese consumption and the use of butter in cooking lowered risk of a heart attack. In fact those with the highest cheese intake had a 26 % lower risk of a heart attack compared to those with the lowest intake. However, those that used butter on bread had a 34 % increased risk of heart attack compared to those that never used butter at all. In addition, there was no differences seen between those who consumed low fat dairy foods, and those that consumed high fat dairy foods.
Therefore there seems to exist differences in the associations between different dairy products and heart attack risk in women. The protective effects of cheese on heart attacks, may relate to its particularly high content of calcium. If calcium is the key component of dairy that causes weight loss, those who eat cheese might be less fat and therefore have a lower risk of a heart attack. In fact when the authors made adjustments to the statistics to take account of the calcium content of the cheese, the significance of the result was attenuated. Therefore this provides evidence that the calcium content of the cheese might be the beneficial component in preventing heart attacks. The protective effects of butter in cooking is interesting because it is unclear why this provides a protective effect but using butter on bread does not. It could be that the use of cooking butter might signify a reduction in the use of polyunsaturated cooking oils, something which is associated with an increased intake of oxidised and cardio-damaging fatty acids.
Dr Robert Barrington’s Nutritional Recommendation: Dairy consumption is increasingly being found to show beneficial health effects. While the mainstream media and medical community continue to promulgate the same tired mantra about the dangers of the high fat contents of cheese and milk, the nutritional literature continues to report positive health effects in people who consume these products. Eating dairy product freely, particularly cheese and yoghurt, seems a good adjunct to a health diet as studies attest to their beneficial weight loss and health effects.
RdB
