Total and Full-Fat, but Not Low-Fat, Dairy Product Intakes are Inversely Associated with Metabolic Syndrome in Adults
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Abstract
Background: Growing evidence suggests that dairy products may have beneficial cardiometabolic effects. The current guidelines, however, limit the intake of full-fat dairy products.
Objective: We investigated the association of dairy consumption, types of dairy products, and dairy fat content with metabolic syndrome (MetSyn).
Methods: We analyzed baseline data of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil), a multicenter cohort study of 15,105 adults aged 35–74 y. We excluded participants with known diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or other chronic diseases, and those who had extreme values of energy intake, leaving 9835 for analysis. Dairy consumption was assessed by a food-frequency questionnaire. We computed servings per day for total and subgroups of dairy intake. We computed a metabolic risk score (MetScore) as the mean z score of waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, HDL cholesterol (negative z score), fasting triglycerides, and fasting glucose. We performed multivariable linear regression to test the association of servings per day of dairy products with MetScore.
Results: In analyses that adjusted for demographics, menopausal status, family history of diabetes, dietary intake, nondietary lifestyle factors, and body mass index, we observed a graded inverse association for MetScore with total dairy (−0.044 ± 0.01, P = 0.009 for each additional dairy servings per day) and full-fat dairy (−0.126 ± 0.03, P < 0.001) but not with low-fat dairy intake. Associations were no longer present after additional adjustments for dairy-derived saturated fatty acids.
Conclusions: Total and especially full-fat dairy food intakes are inversely and independently associated with metabolic syndrome in middle-aged and older adults, associations that seem to be mediated by dairy saturated fatty acids. Dietary recommendations to avoid full-fat dairy intake are not supported by our findings."
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Food sources of fat may clarify the inconsistent role of dietary fat intake for incidence of type 2 diabetes. - PubMed - NCBI
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CONCLUSIONS:
Decreased T2D risk at high intake of high- but not of low-fat dairy products suggests that dairy fat partly could have contributed to previously observed protective associations between dairy intake and T2D. Meat intake was associated with increased risk independently of the fat content."
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Abstract
Background: Growing evidence suggests that dairy products may have beneficial cardiometabolic effects. The current guidelines, however, limit the intake of full-fat dairy products.
Objective: We investigated the association of dairy consumption, types of dairy products, and dairy fat content with metabolic syndrome (MetSyn).
Methods: We analyzed baseline data of the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA-Brasil), a multicenter cohort study of 15,105 adults aged 35–74 y. We excluded participants with known diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, or other chronic diseases, and those who had extreme values of energy intake, leaving 9835 for analysis. Dairy consumption was assessed by a food-frequency questionnaire. We computed servings per day for total and subgroups of dairy intake. We computed a metabolic risk score (MetScore) as the mean z score of waist circumference, systolic blood pressure, HDL cholesterol (negative z score), fasting triglycerides, and fasting glucose. We performed multivariable linear regression to test the association of servings per day of dairy products with MetScore.
Results: In analyses that adjusted for demographics, menopausal status, family history of diabetes, dietary intake, nondietary lifestyle factors, and body mass index, we observed a graded inverse association for MetScore with total dairy (−0.044 ± 0.01, P = 0.009 for each additional dairy servings per day) and full-fat dairy (−0.126 ± 0.03, P < 0.001) but not with low-fat dairy intake. Associations were no longer present after additional adjustments for dairy-derived saturated fatty acids.
Conclusions: Total and especially full-fat dairy food intakes are inversely and independently associated with metabolic syndrome in middle-aged and older adults, associations that seem to be mediated by dairy saturated fatty acids. Dietary recommendations to avoid full-fat dairy intake are not supported by our findings."
This study has some limitations. We measured dairy intake and nutrients based on what participants reported in the FFQ, a typical choice in large epidemiologic studies, but this method is subject to random and systematic errors. We used cross-sectional data to identify the association of dairy consumption with the MetSyn, and because of the observational nature of our study, it is possible that our findings resulted from residual confounding despite the fact that we extensively adjusted for other dietary variables and risk factors. Strengths of this study include the direct measurements of the cardiometabolic risk factors and exclusion of subjects with known CVD, diabetes, stroke, or other chronic diseases.
The findings of this study, in which we adjusted for demographics, menopausal status, family history of diabetes, dietary intake, nondietary lifestyle factors, and BMI, suggest that greater dairy intake, especially of full-fat dairy products, may decrease the risk of MetSyn in middle-aged and older adults. Typical dietary guidelines, including the 2015 US guidelines now under review and the new Brazilian dietary guidelines published in 2014, recommend consuming low-fat instead of full-fat dairy products because of the concern that dairy fat could increase the risk for obesity and dyslipidemia (7, 12, 42). However, our findings and the literature on the association of dairy products with obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes do not support dietary guidelines that recommend only a low-fat dairy intake.
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Food sources of fat may clarify the inconsistent role of dietary fat intake for incidence of type 2 diabetes. - PubMed - NCBI
"
CONCLUSIONS:
Decreased T2D risk at high intake of high- but not of low-fat dairy products suggests that dairy fat partly could have contributed to previously observed protective associations between dairy intake and T2D. Meat intake was associated with increased risk independently of the fat content."