A couple of yoghurts a week may fight diabetes
A British study has found that people who eat about two-and-a-half servings of yoghurt a week are more than 25% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes
A British study has found that people who eat about two-and-a-half servings of yoghurt a week are more than 25% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than their non-yoghurt-eating counterparts.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit analysed data from 892 participants in the EPIC-Norfolk study who developed type 2 diabetes during the 11-year study follow-up. The researchers compared the seven-day food diaries of those people with 4000 other randomly selected study participants.
The results were published in the European Association for the Study of Diabetes journal Diabetologia in February 2014. After adjusting for age and sex, researchers found that the participants who ate 4.4 ounces of yoghurt (a serving is considered to be 8 ounces, or 1 cup) four-and-a-half times a week had a 28% lowered risk of developing diabetes than people who didn’t eat any yoghurt.
In addition, the researchers discovered that the study participants who ate more low-fat fermented dairy products, including yoghurt, cheese and sour cream, were 24% less likely to contract diabetes than people who ate less of these foods. Researchers didn’t find the same effect from the consumption of high-fat dairy products.
The researchers noted that 'replacing a [serving of potato chips] with a portion of yoghurt reduced the hazard of type 2 diabetes by 47%, suggesting that some of the association may be attributed to not consuming unhealthy alternatives.'
