Two studies of the effect of dairy consumption on health have recently appeared. Both suggest it is healthy. One of them– a prospective study where about 1500 people were followed for 16 years — found no association of dairy intake with overall mortality but did find a protective effect of full-fat dairy against heart disease. The study considered lots of possibilities and the authors write ” it is important to take into account the large number of comparisons considered in this study and thus we cannot rule out the possibility that the protective association between full-fat dairy intake and cardiovascular mortality was due to chance.”
I mentioned this study earlier. It gains more credence because of the other study, which is a meta-analysis. The second study found protective effects of dairy products on several outcomes, including overall mortality:
Meta-analyses suggest a reduction in risk in the subjects with the highest dairy consumption relative to those with the lowest intake: 0.87 (0.77, 0.98) for all-cause deaths, 0.92 (0.80, 0.99) for ischaemic heart disease, 0.79 (0.68, 0.91) for stroke and 0.85 (0.75, 0.96) for incident diabetes.
This is good news for me since I eat yogurt and butter every day.
Thanks to Peter Spero.
Strangely enough, butter and cream are the only two dairy items that don’t cause me some discomfort. It must be the higher fat content. Even yogurt/kefir, if I eat more than just a very small portion (and I mean a couple of tablespoons) has this effect on me. Those touting raw dairy products claim that these don’t cause similar lactose intolerance as pasteurized products. That *MAY* be true for some people but not for me.
Anyway, like I said, I am able to digest butter just fine and have plenty of other sources of good saturated fats. Ditto for probiotics.
In general I eat mostly saturated fats. I do sometimes use olive oil and macadamia nut oil for cooking, as these are primarily monounsaturated fats.
I once went to a lecture by a nutritionist who extolled the virtues of this book:
The No-Dairy Breast Cancer Prevention Program: How One Scientist’s Discovery Helped Her Defeat Her Cancer.
The author, who is a prominent geologist in Britain, claims that dairy products contain growth factors that stimulate cancer growth. I never read the book, but it sounded interesting at the time I attended the lecture a few years ago.
Andronico’s on Shattuck Ave. in No. Berkeley now carries raw milk and raw cream.
Richard Cohen takes a dramatically different position,www.no milk.com
He cites study after study implicating dairy in cancer, heart disease, degenerative diseases, etc. The ‘milk letter’ by a physician at the top of his site is a bit long, but proposes that dairy can be the cause of everything from bovine leukemia in humans to arthritis, allergies and aneurisms.
I’d be curious to see how the info and references with these two studes lines up above with the referenced material on https://www.nomilk.com
For every nutritional belief on the net there is an equal and opposite belief to be found – The Third Law of Nutrition
There was a guy in the UK who ate nothing but mild cheddar cheese and had no major complications, just bouts of tiredness. He started this diet (due to food-phobia) as a toddler and ended it aged 29, a strapping physically active guy.
https://thedailyg.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/are-nutritionists-phonies/