Over the years, I’ve heard a whole lot of different proposed diets: Atkins, South Beach, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, all-carb, no-carb, you name it. These mostly promise the same result: improved health and spectacular weight loss. But all of them offer wildly varying, often contradicting, means to that end. Yet a quiet revolution in mainstream scientific thinking has begun to take hold, one that views full-fat dairy products differently.
Cheese has almost always been viewed as a fattening food that’s dangerous to our heart health. Yet directly in contrast to veganism and pretty much everybody’s preconceived notion, Dr. Arne Astrup, professor and head of the department of nutrition, exercise and sports at the University of Copenhagen, cheese is actually beneficial to cardiovascular health. At the American Heart Association scientific sessions, Astrup declared that a diet of cheese plays a large part in managing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. He doesn’t think that there’s any harmful effect from eating cheese, but is rather beneficial.
In a recent comprehensive meta-analysis of 31 prospective cohort studies, a high dairy intake was associated with a 9% reduction in the risk of stroke, an 18% lower risk of coronary heart disease and a 13% reduction in risk of stroke. Investigators in the Netherlands (a country known for their love of cheese) made a meta-analysis of 18 prospective cohort studies found that risk of stroke fell 7% for each 200 ml of dairy consumed every day, while consumption of 25 gm a day or more of cheese was associated with a 13% reduction in stroke risk and 8% lower risk of CHD. A joint Chinese/Dutch meta-analysis found a 14% relative risk reduction for CHD and a 10% lower risk of stroke with high versus low cheese intake.
This “classic lipid” hypothesis tied with cardiovascular disease says that dietary saturated fat raises blood cholesterol, which in turn accelerates atherosclerosis and CHD. Yet recent studies indicate that not all saturated fats are equally harmful, and have vastly different biological effects. For example, the saturated fatty acids and trans fats in red meat are damaging, yet those in dairy products are actually cardioprotective. According to Dr. Astrup, fermented dairy products contain a long list of potentially beneficial nutrients in addition to saturated fats. Strong evidence suggests that a diet high in dairy products reduces the risk of childhood obesity and enhances body consumption in adults. Even the World Cancer Research Fund has weighed in, concluding that dairy products probably protect against colorectal, breast, gastric and bladder cancer.
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