40 years of bad advice: full-fat is good for you

For more than 40 years we’ve been advised to consume low-fat dairy products and skimmed milk—and the recommendation has damaged our health.

Full fat dairy products are healthy and should be part of a balanced diet, a new study has concluded.

Full-fat dairy doesn’t increase our chances of developing heart disease—as everyone had feared—but instead it allows the body to process higher levels of vitamin D, calcium and protein, and it keeps blood pressure in check.

And people who eat three servings of full-fat dairy every day don’t put on weight, don’t lose energy and don’t see their cholesterol levels increase, say researchers from the University of Toronto.

Because dairy contains saturated fats, health advisers had assumed it would increase the risk of heart disease—but study after study had failed to see any connection.

The Toronto researchers came to the same conclusion.  They randomly assigned 74 obese or overweight people to one of three dietary groups: one followed a low-dairy, calorie-restricted diet; a second was given an energy-neutral diet that included three servings of dairy each day, and a third group ate an unrestricted diet that also included three daily servings of dairy.

After 12 weeks, there was no big difference between those who were eating full-fat and low-fat dairy diets; their weight was the same as was their body mass, and their cholesterol levels were similar.

Any harm that full-fat dairy might cause in theory is offset by two compounds—whey and casein—the products contain, and which allow the slow and gradual delivery of nutrients to the body.

Older people could especially benefit by eating full-fat.  The diet improves the body’s abilities to absorb more energy and protein, and that could be vital as we get older—and it’s a healthy way to do it.

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