Low-Fat Dairy Products: Healthier or Not?

A recent research, that investigators claim to be the largest on the issue to date, has concluded that adults who ingested higher quantities of low-fat dairy products at the same time had a fairly reduced long-term risk of stroke.

The study involved nearly 75,000 Swedish adults who were tracked for an average of 10 years after completing a dietary questionnaire.

Those who consumed low-fat versions of products such as milk, yogurt or cheese had a 12 percent lower risk for stroke than those whose diet typically included high/full-fat versions of these dairy staples.

This research was developed by National Institute of Environmental Medicine at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, led by Susanna Larsson, and the finding were reported April 19 in the journal Stroke.

The study authors noted that in the United States, about one-third of all adult men and women over the age of 18 have high blood pressure, which they describe as a “major controllable risk factor” for stroke. Still, they added, only about half of affected Americans have their blood pressure under control.

With that in mind, experts have long touted the benefits of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH diet), with its emphasis on low-fat dairy consumption.

In 1997, the Swedish team administered food surveys to almost 75,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 83, none of whom had a prior history of either heart disease or cancer.

From that point forward, the incidence of stroke among study participants was monitored via data collected by the Swedish Hospital Discharge Registry.

Over the course of about a decade, nearly 4,100 strokes occurred, the authors noted. People who stuck tolow-fat dairy products appeared to have a somewhat lower risk for stroke. The study was only able to find an association between eating low-fat dairy products and lowered odds for stroke; it could not prove cause-and-effect.

So, next time you go shopping make yourself a favor and buy low-fat dairy products.