Review finds no link between dairy and heart attack or stroke risk

Conclusion This large meta-analysis of cohort studies demonstrated no increased risk to cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease or all-cause death from eating dairy products. The review has strengths in its large size and the fact it was able to analyse different types of dairy product, such as high and low-fat and everyday products such as cheese and yoghurt. However, there are a number of factors to consider: The results of a systematic review are only as good as the quality of the underlying studies. These are all observational studies and it's possible that unadjusted health and lifestyle factors are having an influence. Different studies adjusted for different variables; for example, some adjusted for overall diet, smoking and total energy intake, others did not. Studies may also have differed in how accurately they measured analysed dairy intake and health outcomes. This may explain some variation in individual study results, and make it difficult to summarise these studies all together. Overall there wasn't good evidence for any link between dairy and these health outcomes. The lowered risk of cheese fell short of statistical significance. The links between fermented products and all-cause death and cardiovascular disease were down to the results of one study. This shows the influence that one study, which may differ in methods from others, can have on the overall results. There are other dairy products such as cream that are very high in fat but wer...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Neurology Source Type: news