Eating yogurt may cut cardiovascular risk
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By David Liu, Ph.D. and editing by Sarah Heilman
Friday June 3, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- A study reported recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests eating yogurt may help reduce cardiovascular risk. It should be noted that the study is not a trial and only suggests a possibility.
Kerry L. Ivey of Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia and colleagues conducted the study and found yogurt eaters were less likely than non-yogurt eaters to increase their common carotid artery intima-media thickness or CCA-IMT. This means that they were less likely to suffer atherosclerosis or cardiovascular disease.
The researchers set out to study the effect of dairy products because previously released data suggested eating dairy may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
At the beginning of the study, the authors surveyed 1,080 participants, who were randomly selected from ambulant white women older than 70 in Perth, Western Australia, about their consumption of dairy products including milk, cheese, and yogurt. Three years later, CCA-IMT was measured in the participants using B-mode carotid ultrasound. Risk factors including blood lipids and blood pressure were also assessed at baseline.
The total consumption of dairy products including milk and cheese was not associated with the CCA-IMT. However, yogurt consumption was negatively correlated with CCA-IMT.
Specifically, women eating greater than 100 grams of yogurt per day had a significantly lower CCA-IMT, compared with those who ate less.
The authors did not say how consumption of milk or cheese was associated with the CCA-IMT. But because yogurt was negatively associated, then it was possible that milk and cheese may be positively correlated with CCA-IMT. However, the researchers did not report any association.
V. Mikkilä of the University of Helsinki in Finland and colleagues published a study in 2009 in the British Journal of Nutrition stating that high consumption of rye, potatoes, butter, sausages, milk, and coffee was positively associated with IMT.
I. Ellingsen and colleagues from Ullevål University Hospital in Norway also published evidence in the same journal in 2008 that eating fruit and berries was inversely associated with IMT.
"Increases in the thickness of the intima and media of the carotid artery, as measured noninvasively by ultrasonography, are directly associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction and stroke in older adults without a history of cardiovascular disease, " said D.H. O'Leary and colleagues from Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston in 1999 in New England Journal of Medicine.
Photo credit: wikipedia
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