Dairy industry funded study plays down saturated fats

[andyswarbs]

Many thanks to Marion Nestle of Food Politics for this review of yet another dairy sales-marketing promotion masked as "research."

The Study: Dairy Fat Consumption and the Risk of Metabolic Syndrome: An Examination of the Saturated Fatty Acids in Dairy. Allison L. Unger,Moises Torres-Gonzalez, and Jana Kraft. Nutrients 2019, 11(9), 2200; doi.org/10.3390/nu11092200

The review argues: “it is likely that the diverse array of SFA [saturated fatty acid] constituents within full-fat dairy foods contributes to favorably modulating cardiometabolic health.”

It concludes: “In summary, previous work on the impact of dairy-derived SFA consumption on disease risk suggests that there is currently insufficient evidence to support current dietary guidelines which consolidate all dietary SFA into a single group of nutrients whose consumption should be reduced, regardless of dietary source, food matrix, and composition.”

Funding and Conflicted Interests (my emphasis): “The work involved for this manuscript was funded by National Dairy Council….M.T.-G. is employee of National Dairy Council. J.K. has received research funding from National Dairy Council.

Comment: This purpose of this dairy-funded review is to demonstrate that contrary to contradictory information, the saturated fatty acids in dairy foods are not only benign, but beneficial. The dairy industry would love that to be true.

[Hidden]

Hi Andy, I think the problem with vilifying dairy and full fat dairy milk cheese cream is because of obesity and when people become obese they have to take drastic action to reduce the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

I now drink full fat goats milk and see it as a highly nutritious food. To me one interesting sentence is:

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a serious health condition characterized as a minimum of three of the following physiological components: hyperglycemia, abdominal obesity, atherogenic dyslipidemia

My problem with plant based milks is they are only a few % of nuts/beans etc and are then mixed with water + additives like emulsifiers and artificial sweeteners. I avoid E no's artificial sugars and eat a naturally whole food diet which includes full fat dairy but if I were obese I would take drastic action to reduce this and might swap full fat milk for semi skimmed which lacks a lot of the nutrients of full fat milk, so it's getting the balance right in the first instance and not having to go on a strict dietary regime to regain a normal weight.

So I'd like to see unbiassed research with a broad spectrum of society rather than those who are clinically obese. My LDL is 1.4 and my HDL 2.9 on my full fat diet and previous to this it was 1.5 and 3.0 so is very stable.

[Zest]

Hi Andy,

I am interested to read this study, and hope to do so soon. In the meantime, wishing you an enjoyable day.

I eat dairy products regularly, so will be interested to read this article.

Zest