A study called Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) Study conducted on roughly 150,000 subjects worldwide revealed that eating at least 2 servings of high-fat dairy but necessarily low fat products, a day can lower the risk of developing symptoms of metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The participants in this study were from 21 different countries, India, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates were included, and were of the ages between 35 and 70. They were given Food Frequency Questionnaires about dairy products such as yogurt drinks, milk, and yogurt, dishes that included dairy products and milk were considered as low fat or full fats. Some countries assessed the consumption of cream and butter separately.
Furthermore, information on the subjects’ medical history, smoking, weight, blood pressure, waist circumference, educational attainments, use of prescription drugs and fasting blood glucose was collected too. Around 179g of high fat dairy were consumed. 46,667 of the 150,000 participants were suffering from symptoms of metabolic syndrome.
What Were the Study’s Results?
The results of the PURE study indicates that a high consumption of high fat dairy products decreases the occurrence of the metabolic syndrome after comparisons between the countries with low and high dairy intakes have been made. It seems 2 servings a day of fat dairy reduces the risk of developing this disease by 24 to 28%. 190,000 participants had their health tracked for 9 years. 13,640 developed high blood pressure, whereas 5,351 diabetes. A minimum of 2 servings of high fat dairy a day was associated to a 11 to 12% reduction in both these diseases, while 3 daily servings with a 13-14% one. Here’s what the researchers had to say about the entire study:
“If our findings are confirmed in sufficiently large and long term trials, then increasing dairy consumption may represent a feasible and low cost approach to reducing metabolic syndrome, hypertension, diabetes and ultimately cardiovascular disease events worldwide.”
Not the First Research of This Kind
Back in 2019, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition also published a study conducted on overweight people and their consumption of dairy products. This study revealed as well that a high dairy diet (HDD) is connected to low blood pressure, especially if accompanied by an increased consumption of calcium. An HDD was compared with an LDD, which stands for low dairy diet, in people who consumed 5 to 6 dairy portions a day for 6 weeks and people who had less than 1 portion of dairy daily.
Furthermore, there was also a 2011 study published in the Journal of Nutrition. This study concluded low-fat dairy products consumption reduces the risk of developing diabetes in postmenopausal women, especially those who are obese. This last-mentioned study didn’t show anything on the dairy products that are high in fat, though. It was solely based on yogurt consumption.
