Replace cheese with yogurt to lower risk of type 2 diabetes, says study

Increasing daily consumption of yogurt may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D), while increasing cheese intake may elevate such risk in both men and women, according to a US study.

“Our study suggests that substituting yogurt or reduced-fat milk for cheese is associated with a lower risk of T2D,” the authors said.

A total of 11,906 incident cases of T2D were documented for 2,783,210 person-years. After adjustment for initial and changes in diet and lifestyle covariates, a reduction in total dairy consumption by >1.0 serving/d over a 4-year period correlated with an 11-percent (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 3–19 percent) increase in T2D risk in the following 4 years as compared with maintaining a relative stable consumption (ie, change in intake of ±1.0 serving/wk).

Moreover, an increase in yogurt intake by >0.5 serving/d correlated with an 11-percent (95 percent CI, 4–18 percent) decrease in T2D risk, but an increase in cheese consumption by >0.5 serving/d led to a 9-percent (95 percent CI, 2–16 percent) increase in T2D risk as compared with maintaining stable intakes. Substituting 1 serving/d of yogurt or reduced-fat milk for cheese resulted in a 16- (95 percent CI, 10–22 percent) or 12-percent (95 percent CI, 8–16 percent) decrease in such risk, respectively.

In this study, the authors followed 34,224 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986–2012), 76,531 women in the Nurses’ Health Study (1986–2012), and 81,597 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II (1991–2013) and calculated changes in dairy consumption from consecutive quadrennial food frequency questionnaires.

Multivariable Cox proportional regression models were used to calculate HRs for T2D associated with changes in dairy product consumption. An inverse variance-weighted, fixed-effect meta-analysis was used to pool results of the three cohorts.