What’s your breakfast of choice? Do you enjoy eating yogurt? Or do you sit down to a big bowl of cereal in the morning?
A new study shows diets high in dairy reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. The ingredient that researchers believe is protecting the body is a compound call trans-palmitoleic acid. It’s a fatty acid found in milk, cheese, yogurt, and butter and is not produced by the body.
A study done by Harvard researchers examined 3,736 participants in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-funded Cardiovascular Health Study, who have been followed for 20 years in an observational study to evaluate risk factors for cardiovascular diseases in older adults. Patients with a high level of trans-palmitoleic acid in their body were 60% less likely to develop diabetes.
“This type of observational finding requires confirmation in additional observational studies and controlled trials, but the magnitude of this association is striking,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Hardvard School of Public Health and Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. “This represents an almost three-fold difference in risk of developing diabetes among individuals with the highest blood levels of this fatty acid.”
Mozaffarian says past studies have found this connection between dairy foods and diabetes but this is the first time a specific acid has been connected.
“We wonder whether this naturally occurring trans fatty acid in dairy fats may partly mimic the normal biologic role of its cis counterpart, cis-palmitoleic acid, a fatty acid that is produced in the body. In animal experiments, cis-palmitoleic acid protects against diabetes.”
While the study does provide good information, researchers say more studies are needed.
“There has been no clear biologic explanation for the lower risk of diabetes seen with higher dairy consumption in prior studies. This is the first time that the relationship of trans-palmitoleic acid with diabetes risk has been evaluated,” said Mozaffarian. “It’s an interesting connection we will have to look further into.”
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