Low-fat products have always been the answer for a healthier lifestyle, but a recent study may prove wrong, giving people the freedom to go back to whole milk and tasting ice creams.
The Study
A team of researchers from Tulane University started to study blood biomarkers from a 15-year-old database, that was first intended to be used in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.
The study published in the journal Circulation has found that people who consumed whole milk or full dairy products had a lower risk of 46 percent to develop diseases such as diabetes and obesity when being compared to those who opted for low-fat products.
There was a separate study that involved around 18,000 middle-aged women who had an average weight. The data came from the Women’s Health Study. After evaluating the data, researchers found that subjects who consumed full-fat products had an 8 percent less chance to develop obesity.
None of the patients involved in the study had been diagnosed previously with cardiovascular or sugar-related diseases.
“I think these findings together with those from other studies do call for a change in the policy of recommending only low-fat dairy products. There is no prospective human evidence that people who eat low-fat dairy do better than people who eat whole-fat dairy,” said study author Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian to Time magazine.
A normal diet established by nationwide guidelines suggest that saturated fat consumption should be kept to less than the 10 percent of the daily intake.
The study finds that advising only low-fat dairy products is not entirely productive, although the results researchers found may change the way Americans lead their healthy lifestyle, authors have said that it may be too soon to change dietary and nutrition guidelines.
“I am conservative about setting national dietary guidelines. While evidence remains insufficient to definitively recommend only whole-fat dairy, it certainly is robust enough not to recommend only low-fat dairy,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian author of the first study and dean of the School of Nutrition.
The findings of the study might set the way for a more flexible dietary guidelines for the future.
Source: CBS News
I think it is easy to draw incorrect conclusions from a study like this.
For example, multiple studies have shown a strong correlation between consumption of diet drinks and obesity. The more diet drinks people consume, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese. Do diet drinks cause obesity? No, it’s the other way around. Overweight people consume more diet drinks, and obese people consume the most. Thin people drink regular sugary drinks because they can afford the extra calories.
Might the same principle apply to the nonfat/lowfat/full-fat dairy consumption? Thin and healthy people choose full-fat dairy because they like the taste and can afford the extra calories. Overweight and obese people are told by their doctors to choose low-fat and nonfat dairy, and they do so. So it might be true that poor health causes nonfat dairy consumption, not the other way around.
I think it is easy to draw incorrect conclusions from a study like this.
For example, multiple studies have shown a strong correlation between consumption of diet drinks and obesity. The more diet drinks people consume, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese. Do diet drinks cause obesity? No, it’s the other way around. Overweight people consume more diet drinks, and obese people consume the most. Thin people drink regular sugary drinks because they can afford the extra calories.
Might the same principle apply to the nonfat/lowfat/full-fat dairy consumption? Thin and healthy people choose full-fat dairy because they like the taste and can afford the extra calories. Overweight and obese people are told by their doctors to choose low-fat and nonfat dairy, and they do so. So it might be true that poor health causes nonfat dairy consumption, not the other way around.
I think it is easy to draw incorrect conclusions from a study like this.
For example, multiple studies have shown a strong correlation between consumption of diet drinks and obesity. The more diet drinks people consume, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese. Do diet drinks cause obesity? No, it’s the other way around. Overweight people consume more diet drinks, and obese people consume the most. Thin people drink regular sugary drinks because they can afford the extra calories.
Might the same principle apply to the nonfat/lowfat/full-fat dairy consumption? Thin and healthy people choose full-fat dairy because they like the taste and can afford the extra calories. Overweight and obese people are told by their doctors to choose low-fat and nonfat dairy, and they do so. So it might be true that poor health causes nonfat dairy consumption, not the other way around.
I think it is easy to draw incorrect conclusions from a study like this.
For example, multiple studies have shown a strong correlation between consumption of diet drinks and obesity. The more diet drinks people consume, the more likely they are to be overweight or obese. Do diet drinks cause obesity? No, it’s the other way around. Overweight people consume more diet drinks, and obese people consume the most. Thin people drink regular sugary drinks because they can afford the extra calories.
Might the same principle apply to the nonfat/lowfat/full-fat dairy consumption? Thin and healthy people choose full-fat dairy because they like the taste and can afford the extra calories. Overweight and obese people are told by their doctors to choose low-fat and nonfat dairy, and they do so. So it might be true that poor health causes nonfat dairy consumption, not the other way around.