HOUSTON – (July 11, 2018) – Enjoying full-fat milk, yogurt, cheese and butter is unlikely to send people to an early grave, according to new research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
The study, published today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found no significant link between dairy fats and cause of death or, more specifically, heart disease and stroke – two of the country’s biggest killers often associated with a diet high in saturated fat. In fact, certain types of dairy fat may help guard against having a severe stroke, the researchers reported.
“Our findings not only support, but also significantly strengthen, the growing body of evidence which suggests that dairy fat, contrary to popular belief, does not increase risk of heart disease or overall mortality in older adults. In addition to not contributing to death, the results suggest that one fatty acid present in dairy may lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, particularly from stroke,” said Marcia Otto, Ph.D., the study’s first and corresponding author and assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences at UTHealth School of Public Health.
Dariush Mozaffarian, M.D., of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, was senior author of the study, funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The study evaluated how multiple biomarkers of fatty acid present in dairy fat related to heart disease and all-cause mortality over a 22-year period. This measurement methodology, as opposed to the more commonly used self-reported consumption, gave greater and more objective insight into the impact of long-term exposure to these fatty acids, according to the report.
Nearly 3,000 adults age 65 years and older were included in the study, which measured plasma levels of three different fatty acids found in dairy products at the beginning in 1992 and again at six and 13 years later.
None of the fatty acid types were significantly associated with total mortality. In fact one type was linked to lower cardiovascular disease deaths. People with higher fatty acid levels, suggesting higher consumption of whole-fat dairy products, had a 42 percent lower risk of dying from stroke.
The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans currently recommend serving fat-free or low-fat dairy, including milk, cheese, yogurt, and/or fortified soy beverages. But Otto pointed out that low-fat dairy foods such as low-fat yogurt and chocolate milk often include high amounts of added sugars, which may lead to poor cardiovascular and metabolic health.
“Consistent with previous findings, our results highlight the need to revisit current dietary guidance on whole fat dairy foods, which are rich sources of nutrients such as calcium and potassium. These are essential for health not only during childhood but throughout life, particularly also in later years when undernourishment and conditions like osteoporosis are more common,” Otto said.
Evidence-based research is key to educating people about nutrition, Otto said.
“Consumers have been exposed to so much different and conflicting information about diet, particularly in relation to fats,” she said. “It’s therefore important to have robust studies, so people can make more balanced and informed choices based on scientific fact rather than hearsay,” she added.
The research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (grant R01HL085710 and R01HL085710-07S1).
lepandas on July 12nd, 2018 at 13:47 UTC »
This study is on older men who already have absurdly high cholesterol levels. They gave them dietary cholesterol and fat and said "Whelp, looks like it doesn't raise their cholesterol by that much!"
That's like stabbing someone then stabbing the stab wound and noticing that the stab wound's size isn't increasing, so it must mean that stabbing doesn't cause bleeding!
How about you look at this meta-analysis of actually methodologically valid 395 metabolic ward experiments that conclusively states that saturated fat and cholesterol raise serum cholesterol?
HDL raising medication increased all-cause mortality and worsened cardiovascular outcomes.
Plasma HDL cholesterol does not reduce risk of myocardial infarction.
The ideal range for LDL cholesterol where no atherosclerosis can occur is only found in vegans.
Large LDL raise cardiovascular disease risk by 44%, small LDL by 63%.
Regardless of size, LDL particles are atherogenic.
Consumption of saturated fats leads to atherogenesis.
Total cholesterol is clearly increased by dietary cholesterol.
Heart disease is clearly linked to high cholesterol levels.
Cholesterol crystals activate NLRP3 inflammasomes, leading to atherogenesis.
Most children by age ten have signs of atherosclerosis in their arteries. We are clearly not supposed to consume animal products for optimal health if atherosclerosis begins at such a young age due to their consumption.
Vegans are the only studied population with non-atherogenic LDL cholesterol levels.
I'd also like to mention that this study was published by the American Society for Nutrition, an organisation that is beholden to big dairy. So, no surprise that they'd fish out invalid studies to fool people.
Pikeman212a6c on July 12nd, 2018 at 13:40 UTC »
Who funded this study?
SirT6 on July 12nd, 2018 at 12:04 UTC »
I'm struggling with this one - the title of the post, the press release and the article is about dairy fats. But when you read the article, they don't actually look at dairy consumption!
The premise of the study seems to be that there is some contested research out there suggesting that dairy is bad for you. Critics of those studies say that they rely on self-reported measure of how much dairy the participants consume. They argue this is an unreliable measurement, since people lie/have bad memory/etc.
So the new study picked three biomarkers of dairy fat consumption and looked at cardiovascular risk based on these biomarkers. They found no indication that high levels of these biomarkers was linked to higher risk of cardiovascular death. Cool. BUT, this finding is also difficult to interpret.
They did not ask people about dairy consumption, or attempt to measure dairy consumption. So we don't know how well these three biomarkers actually reflect dairy consumption.
Circulating levels of these biomarkers could be more of a measurement of how people process the fat rather than how much they consume.
These biomarkers don't do a good job distinguishing the source of the fat. You could very easily argue the source of the fat matters, i.e. pizza vs. milk.
The study also finds that one of their three biomarkers is associated with higher non-cardiovascular mortality. Noise or real? If real, a bit concerning.
So it feels a bit like a dog chasing its tail to me. Doubly disappoint since the study seems to have collected at least baseline info about dairy consumption (why not report those results, unless I missed it somewhere in the text). I doubt that this study proved dairy is safe to eat. But I also doubt that these previous studies showed dairy was unsafe. Welcome to the world of nutritional research - where the absence of RCTs make it very difficult to make meaningful recommendations about diet and human health.