More cheese, please! New study shows dairy is good for your metabolic health

Almost half of those surveyed not getting enough dairy

2014-09-16

(Press-News.org) This news release is available in French.

Dairy is considered part of a healthy diet and dietary guidelines recommend the daily consumption of 2-4 portions of milk-based products such as milk, yogurt, cheese, cream and butter.

It's well known that dairy products contain calcium and minerals good for bones, but new research has shown that dairy consumption may also have beneficial effects on metabolic health and can reduce risk of metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Curious about these impacts, researchers from CHU de Québec Research Center and Laval University studied the dairy-eating habits of healthy French-Canadians' and monitored how dairy consumption may have an effect on their overall metabolic health. They published their findings today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.

The aim of this study was to determine associations between dairy intake and specific metabolic risk factors, including anthropometric status, plasma glucose, plasma lipid profile, inflammatory markers and blood pressure, in a healthy population.

A total of 254 participants from the greater Quebec City metropolitan area were recruited; 233 participants (105 men and 128 women) met all the eligibility criteria for the study ‒ subjects had healthy metabolic profiles.

The study showed that the average individual consumed 2.5 ± 1.4 portions of dairy per day. However, nearly 45% of the population in this study did not meet Canada's Food Guide recommendations of at least 2 portions of dairy products a day. These findings are supported by recent Canadian surveys that highlighted an under consumption of dairy products by Canadians.

Data suggest that trans-palmitoleic acid found in plasma may be potentially used as a biomarker to evaluate dairy consumption. Trans-palmitoleic acid, is naturally present in milk, cheese, yogurt, butter, and meat fat but cannot be synthetized by the body. This fatty acid has been recently shown to have health-promoting effects. In this study, that trans-palmitoleic acid level was related to lower blood pressure in men and women, and to lower body weight in men.

Dairy intake is associated with lower blood glucose and blood pressure in the population studied, though no causal relationships can be made due to the cross-sectional design. This study adds to a growing body of literature demonstrating a lack of detrimental health effects with higher dairy intake.

Dr. Iwona Rudkowska, a research scientist at the Endocrinology and Nephrology Department, at the CHU de Québec Research Center and assistant professor at Laval University , says "additional well-designed intervention studies are needed to ascertain the effects of increased dairy consumption on metabolic health in healthy and in metabolically deteriorated populations."

INFORMATION: The paper "Associations between dairy intake and metabolic risk parameters in a healthy French-Canadian population" was published today in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.

Please cite Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism as the source of this story and include hyperlink to paper: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/apnm-2014-0154

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Neuroimaging technique identifies concussion-related brain disease in living brain

2014-09-16

An experimental positron emission tomography (PET) tracer is effective in diagnosing concussion-related brain disease while a person is still alive, according to a case study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and at Molecular Neuroimaging (MNI) LLC in New Haven, and published September 16 in the journal Translational Psychiatry. Specifically, the study results suggest that an experimental radiolabeled compound called [18 F]-T807, which is designed to latch onto a protein called tau that accumulates in the brain with repetitive blows to the head, ...

Lactation linked to reduced estrogen receptor-negative, triple-negative breast cancer risk

2014-09-16

(Boston) — Women who have had children (parous women) appear to have an increased risk of developing estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer, the subtype that carries a higher mortality rate and is more common in women of African ancestry. A similar relationship was found for triple-negative breast cancer. However, the association between childbearing and increased risk of estrogen receptor-negative and triple-negative breast cancer was largely confined to the women who had never breastfed. These findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggest ...

Select group of stage IV lung cancer patients achieve long-term survival after aggressive treatments

2014-09-16

San Francisco, September 16, 2014—A large, international analysis of patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) indicates that a patient's overall survival (OS) rate can be related to factors including the timing of when metastases develop and lymph node involvement, and that aggressive treatment for "low-risk" patients leads to a five-year OS rate of 47.8 percent, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 56th Annual Meeting. When lung cancer has spread from an original tumor to other sites of the ...

New gene research helps pinpoint prostate cancer risk

2014-09-16

Scientists could soon better predict a man's risk of getting prostate cancer after a worldwide team of researchers carried out the largest-ever analysis of the cancer's genetic biomarkers, reported in Nature Genetics today. QUT Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation's Dr Jyotsna Batra and Distinguished Professor Judith Clements, who led the Australian researchers in the large consortia of research hubs around the world, said the teams analysed more than 10 million genetic markers in 80,000 men. "It's the largest analysis of genetic biomarkers ever done. We found ...

Scientists create therapy-grade stem cells using new cocktail to reprogram adult cells

2014-09-16

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed a new cocktail that is highly effective at coaxing adult cells to become quality pluripotent stem cells. Regenerative medicine is a new and expanding area that aims to replace lost or damaged cells, tissues or organs through cellular transplantation. Because stem cells derived from human embryos can trigger ethical concerns, a good solution is reprogramming adult cells back to an embryo-like state using a combination of reprogramming factors. The resulting cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells ...

NSCLC patients who never smoked or who quit smoking have lower risk of developing secondary cancers

2014-09-16

San Francisco, September 16, 2014— Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) survivors who never smoked or who are former smokers at the time of diagnosis have a lower risk of developing secondary primary lung cancers (SPLC) compared to those who are current smokers, suggesting that increased tobacco exposure is associated with a higher risk of SPLC, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 56th Annual Meeting. The analysis studied the association between patients' smoking histories and their risks of developing SPLC, which ...

Poor body size judgement can lead to increased tolerance of obesity

2014-09-16

Size is relative, especially to people who tend to be on the heavy side. Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center in the US found that seven in every ten obese adults underestimate how much someone weighs. People of normal weight make this mistake much less often. Mothers of overweight or obese children also tend to misjudge their children's size, as youngsters misjudge their obese mothers' size, says lead author Tracy Paul, now at Weill-Cornell Medical College, in a study¹ in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer. If abnormal weight ...

Prostate cancer patients who receive hypofractionated RT report consistent QoL

2014-09-16

San Francisco, September 15, 2014—Prostate cancer patients who received hypofractionated (HPFX) radiation therapy (RT) reported that their quality of life, as well as bladder and bowel function were at similar levels before and after RT, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 56th Annual Meeting. Additionally, results indicate that parallel quality of life outcomes occurred between groups of patients who receive different regimens of HPFX RT. The phase I/II trial enrolled 343 patients with low-to-intermediate risk ...

Prostate cancer patients surveyed 5 years after vessel-sparing RT report preserved sexual function

2014-09-16

San Francisco, September 15, 2014—A comparison of five-year sexual function outcomes, as reported by patients treated with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) versus combination EBRT plus brachytherapy, indicates that the utilization of vessel-sparing radiation therapy makes cure possible without compromising long-term sexual function, according to research presented today at the American Society for Radiation Oncology's (ASTRO's) 56th Annual Meeting. The study examined the patient-reported outcomes of 91 men with prostate cancer who received MRI-guided, vessel-sparing ...

Keystone XL would likely raise oil sands production and greenhouse gas emissions

2014-09-16

Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline (KXL) would likely increase oil sands extraction, according to 26 oil sands professionals and researchers surveyed by the non-profit organization Near Zero. The results are detailed in the report, "Keystone XL: The Climate Impact," and includes both supporters and opponents of the pipeline. This additional extraction of oil sands could lead to significantly higher greenhouse gas emissions, with the exact amount depending largely on how markets respond. "This report examines three main scenarios discussed by participants in our ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Increasing the number of coronary interventions in patients with acute myocardial infarction does not appear to reduce death rates

Striking genomic architecture discovered in embryonic reproductive cells before they start developing into sperm and eggs

AABNet and partners launch landmark guide on the conservation of African livestock genetic resources and sustainable breeding strategies

Produce hydrogen and oxygen simultaneously from a single atom! Achieve carbon neutrality with an 'All-in-one' single-atom water electrolysis catalyst

Sleep loss linked to higher atrial fibrillation risk in working-age adults

Visible light-driven deracemization of α-aryl ketones synergistically catalyzed by thiophenols and chiral phosphoric acid

Babies with an increased likelihood of autism may struggle to settle into deep, restorative sleep, according to a new study from the University of East Anglia.