The TRUTH About Full-Fat Dairy and Diabetes
Do you remember when the dairy companies started touting skim milk for its weight loss benefits in the 80s?
It’s called “skim” because they skim the fat off the top.
Of course, the idea that drinking whole milk would pack on the pounds—and increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease in the process—was just as ludicrous then as it is now.
The difference?
Now, we have the science to prove it.
Here’s the dirty little secret about skim milk: It’s loaded with sugar.
And because the fat has been stripped from it, that sugar makes a beeline for your bloodstream. When it comes to increasing your risk of weight gain AND type 2 diabetes, sugar is Enemy #1.
Farmers have known this for eons. (In fact, they feed skim milk to cows to fatten them up!)
This fact was demonstrated in a recent study in which researchers tracked the dairy consumption of over 74,000 people using food frequency questionnaires.
At the beginning and after five years, they also tested their fasting blood glucose and HbA1c levels (a measurement of blood sugar over time).
Unsurprisingly, low-fat dairy products tend to increase the risk of prediabetes, while high-fat-type products like yogurt are linked to a lower risk.
Other research reveals even stronger connections between full-fat dairy and reduced diabetes risk.
Analysis of the blood samples of over 3,000 adults showed that people with higher levels of byproducts of full-fat dairy in their blood had a 46 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
This connection held even after adjusting for weight.
So, don’t be afraid to eat dairy in its full-fat, full-flavor glory.
Your waistline and your taste buds will thank you.
P.S. Reduce diabetes risk with this dairy MOO-ve!
SOURCE:
“Dairy consumption and incident prediabetes: prospective associations and network models in the large population-based Lifelines Study,” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 118, Issue 6, December 2023, Pages 1077-1090, doi. org /10.1016 /j.ajcnut.2023.10.002
