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Drinking
Low-Fat Milk May Cut Heart Risk
SAN
ANTONIO (Reuters Health) - Drinking at least four glasses of low-fat
milk a day may decrease your risk of heart attacks, scientists
reported here Thursday.
But not all
dairy products have a ``heart-healthy'' aspect, said researcher
Dr. Mark A. Pereira. He said high-fat dairy products such as whole
milk actually raise LDL (or ``bad'') cholesterol. The beneficial
dairy products are ``those that contain 2% or less fat,'' he said
in an interview with Reuters Health.
He said, too,
that those who consumed four or more servings of dairy products
were on average ``about 40% to 60% less likely to be obese.''
One explanation
for the observed benefit of dairy products may be that people
who drink milk are ``less likely to drink soda pop and other highly
sugared drinks,'' said Pereira, at the American Heart Association's
41st Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology
and Prevention.
The findings
come from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults
(CARDIA) study, which followed 2,909 black and white volunteers
aged 18 to 30. The study participants, who lived in Birmingham,
Alabama; Chicago, Illinois; Minneapolis, Minnesota; or Oakland,
California had five clinic exams in the 10-year period between
1985-1986 and 1995-1996. They were also interviewed about their
diet history.
Pereira, from
Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, said that people
who ate or drank the highest level of dairy products, meaning
four or more servings daily, were likely to be leaner, have lower
blood pressure, higher levels of so-called good cholesterol, and
less diabetes.
Importantly,
Pereira said, consumption of dairy products appears to cut the
risk of developing insulin resistance--the metabolic syndrome
that usually leads to development of type 2 or non-insulin dependent
diabetes, which is a known risk factor for developing heart disease.
Dr. Ronald
M. Krause, chair of the American Heart Association's council on
nutrition, physical activity and metabolism, cautioned that ``Pereira's
findings come from an observational study, so we cannot conclude
that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between dairy consumption
and reduced risk for heart disease.''
Reference
Source 89
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