Yogurt for your health!

Using data from EPIC-Norfolk study, a large European study on nutrition and disease, researchers O'Connor, Luben, and Wareham recently found an interesting effect of yogurt consumption: lowered diabetes risk. This study was published in the European journal, Diabetologia, and included data from 4000 participants originally in the EPIC-Norfolk study. The participants noted their food consumption in a diary and also followed up with the researchers for 11 years to assess health outcomes.

Although total dairy consumption didn't end up affecting development of diabetes, the consumption of low-fat (<3.9% fat) fermented foods, especially yogurt, lowered the risk of diabetes by 28%! Specifically, participants seemed to benefit from eating an average of 4 standard 125g yogurt pots a week. Researchers hypothesize that these benefits are attributed to a certain types of vitamin K and probiotic bacteria in fermented products.

It should be noted, however, that it's not certain if yogurt itself caused the lower diabetes risk, or if those who ate yogurt were already healthier to begin with. Nonetheless, there seems to be increasing evidence on the many benefits of yogurt and low-fat dairy products.

Take home message: 
1) Yogurt consumption may lower the risk of diabetes, among other well-recognized benefits. So the next time you crave a little snack, consider substituting yogurt for your chips!

2) When considering food choices, it's important to not just look at the major food groups, but also at the subtypes within each food group (in this case, low-fat fermented dairy).



Sources:

1.

O’Connor L, Luben R, Wareham N. Dietary dairy product intake and incident type 2 diabetes: a prospective study using dietary data from a 7-day food diary. Diabetologia. 2014 Jan 7;