WASHINGTON, May 18, 2016 - American diets are at a
crossroads on the healthfulness of drinking whole milk and eating high-fat
dairy products such as cheese, but lots of well-publicized new research
suggests a big nutritional facelift for those products is in the making.
For about a half century, guidance from government and
health organizations pushed consumers more and more to choose skim and low-fat
milk along with yogurt and other low-fat dairy products. And though the 2015
Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) prescribes two cups of dairy products
daily for young kids, and three cups for adults, the DGA has been squeezing
more and more milk fat out of those recommendations since
1985, when it favored low-fat dairy choices as a way of limiting intake of all
saturated fats. In 2012, USDA ordered whole milk out of school cafeterias,
leaving choices of only skim and 1 percent. It followed that up in 2014 with
new restrictions for families in its Women,
Infants, and Children program. WIC had already eliminated whole milk, but
then went further, limiting 2 percent fat milk to those under 2 years old, and
only skim or 1 percent fat for all others.
Indeed, the low-fat milk idea has been thoroughly sold to
America. For years, the American Academy of Pediatrics online
brochure for youngster health, for example, has suggested whole or 2 percent
fat milk only for children under age 2, and skim or 1 percent for older
children.
And some nutrition experts are convinced that moving away
from whole milk and saturated fats, in general, is still the right path.
“The fact that saturated fat raises cholesterol, especially
the bad LDL cholesterol, is beyond doubt,” said Martijn Katan, an emeritus
professor of nutrition at the Free University of Amsterdam and an expert on
diet and cardiovascular disease. He has gone so far as to suggest
that many of the new studies came as a result of a coordinated industry
effort to “neutralize the negative impact of milkfat by regulators and
medical professionals.”
However, a bevy of studies over the
last few years – some funded by industry
and some not – have separated milk fat from other saturated fats and concluded
that consuming fat, along with the other nutrients, in dairy products is
beneficial, or at least not bad for people.
The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of
Sciences reported, for example, in an assessment
(see p. 272) of recent dairy fat research that much of it suggests “dairy fat
consumption may have different implications for health than other types of
saturated fats.” Part of its report was a review of 16 research projects on
health and dairy fat. In fact, most of the studies reviewed showed an inverse
association between high-fat dairy consumption and obesity or heart disease.
One study tracked more than 3,000 Americans for two decades and found sharply
fewer incidents of diabetes among those with the most dairy fat in their diets.
Another study followed 10,700 children from age 2 to age 4, and found that,
across all racial, ethnic and socioeconomic lines, the kids who drank skim and
1 percent fat milk were fatter than those who drank 2 percent moo juice.
Another significant report
this year from Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University and
Karolinska Institute, looked at the effects of full-fat and low-fat dairy
products on obesity for 18,438 women. After nearly 11 years, the women who
consumed the most high-fat dairy products were least likely to become obese. In
fact, those with the greater intake of high-fat dairy – not low-fat dairy –
gained the least weight.
Two years ago, the National Dairy Council summarized
emerging research findings to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and
called for a new approach it its dairy fat recommendations. “In summary, recent
findings from outcomes studies indicate that milk fat consumption may not be
linked to increased risk, and in some cases may even be associated with
reductions in the risk to cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease and
type 2 diabetes,” the council said.
The DGA’s view of saturated fat began to change in the 2015
rendition. The 2010 DGA’s suggestion limiting daily cholesterol to 300
milligrams was dropped, which pleased
egg producers, dairy farmers and other livestock operators along with
consumers who enjoy livestock products. Plus, the new guidelines called for
more research specific to milk fat consumption and human health.
“Science is continuously evolving,” says Mickey
Rubin, National Dairy Council vice president in charge of nutrition
research. “We have better studies… (and) the research now is just saying that
saturated fat, in general, is essentially neutral. There is no association. It
doesn’t result in increased risk; it doesn’t result in decreased risk for heart
disease.”
Based on past DGA experience, USDA and the Department of
Health and Human Services will likely begin the process of assigning the
advisory committee for the 2020 DGA in 2018. Meanwhile, Rubin says, “The
research [on milk fat] is coming out rapidly. So when it comes time to make
comments for the 2020 guidelines, I think we’ll have a larger base of research…
and it will be more robust than it was (for the 2015) go-round.”
However, Alice Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition science
at Tufts University and vice chair of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory
Committee, says “we need to be cautious when making conclusions on the basis of
observational data because association does not prove causation. We cannot rule
out the possibility that children who are given reduced fat milk tend to be
heavier than those given full fat milk. Does that prove that reduced fat milk
causes overweight in children? Unlikely.”
Americans’ use of whole milk in 2014 (the latest tally by
USDA and state agriculture departments) ticked up to 14 billion pounds. That total amounts to just half of the 1985
volume, but marked the first annual increase since 2000. Cary Frye, vice
president for regulatory and scientific affairs at the International Dairy
Foods Association, notes that whole milk and 2 percent fat milk account for 70
percent of fresh U.S. drinking milk consumption.
#30
For more news, go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com
