Yogurt Every Day May Help Keep Diabetes Away

Eating a serving a day of yogurt may lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.

"The data we have gathered show that yogurt consumption can have significant benefit in reducing the risk of diabetes," said senior study author Dr. Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. "It's not a huge effect, about an 18 percent reduction [in risk]." "Yogurt is not magic for curing or preventing diabetes," Hu said. "That's the bottom line and the message we want to convey to our consumers, that we have to pay attention to our diet pattern. There is no replacement for an overall healthy diet and maintaining [a healthy] body weight."

In type 2 diabetes, the body does not produce enough insulin or the body's cells develop a resistance to insulin, and blood sugar levels then get too high.

For the study, Hu and his team pooled the result of three large studies that tracked the medical histories and lifestyle habits of health professionals: the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study of more than 51,000 male health professionals; the Nurses' Health Study, which included more than 121,000 women nurses; and the Nurses' Health Study II, which followed nearly 117,000 women nurses.

During the study follow-up, there were about 15,000 cases of type 2 diabetes. When they looked at total dairy intake, they saw no effect on the risk of diabetes. However, when they zeroed in on yogurt, they found one serving a day was linked with about a 17 percent reduced risk.

The researchers next pooled their result with other published studies that looked at links between dairy foods and type 2 diabetes. They found a serving of yogurt a day reduced risk by 18 percent. The meta-analysis, in which all the results were pooled, includes 14 different groups with nearly 460,000 people. About 36,000 developed type 2 diabetes. The researchers took into account age, body-mass index and other lifestyle factors. Hu said they did not differentiate between types of yogurt, whether it was Greek-style yogurt or not, and the fat content.

While previous studies have found that yogurt is good for maintain a healthy body weight and lowering risk for type 2 diabetes, ''most of the studies were small," Hu said. So his team decided to look at much larger groups. Exactly how the yogurt may help is not certain. The thinking by many experts is that the probiotics in yogurt ("good" bacteria) alter the intestinal environment in a beneficial way, helping to reduce inflammation and improve the production of hormones important for appetite control, he said. The take-home message, Hu said, is that more study is needed, but that yogurt seems to have a place in a healthy diet.

Martin Binks, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, said that studies that look at diet are inherently limited in their ability to measure true dietary intake. Even so, he said, the link may warrant future study. It's too soon, however, to change advice about diet based on this research, Binks said.

Dr. Osama Hamdy, medical director of the Obesity Program at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, points out: "Yogurt in general is beneficial." But he said, "this is an association, not cause and effect."

Yogurt and probiotic-rich foods can help lower blood pressure

A simple way to help keep your blood pressure in check is to consume plenty of probiotic-rich foods like yogurt and kefir, suggest the findings of a new scientific review. While not necessarily a cure for people with heart issues, probiotics have been shown in a multitude of clinical studies to modestly lower blood pressure, as well as balance blood sugar, cholesterol and hormone levels.

This latest investigation into the science behind probiotics found that the combined results of nine randomized, placebo-controlled studies demonstrate heart benefits associated with probiotics. Among 550 participants who took a probiotic or ate a probiotic-rich food, average systolic blood pressure levels dropped by 3.56 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), while diastolic levels dropped by 2.38 mm Hg, on average.

This is significant, as many blood pressure drugs that perform similar functions come with nasty side effects, none of which are present when taking probiotics. The key, say researchers, is consuming at least 100 billion colony-forming units of probiotics daily, which is roughly the amount found in a small carton of high-quality, authentic yogurt.

"I do not think the general public understands how probiotics might be beneficial to health at this stage," said Jing Sun from the Griffith University School of Medicine and Griffith Heart Institute in Queensland, Australia, lead author of the study. "The challenge to us is to convince patients and clinicians to accept the product in daily life."

Based on the data, taking optimal or higher amounts of probiotics daily for at least two months can produce dramatic benefits, particularly when combined with other interventions like healthy eating and regular exercise. In other words, chowing down on yogurt can be helpful, but it is also important to combine this other healthy lifestyle habits.

Probiotics are a 'functional food' that can prevent chronic illness

Beyond their heart-health benefits, researchers have concluded that probiotics are a full-spectrum "functional food," meaning they offer health benefits beyond basic nutrition. According to Lori Hoolihan, a researcher at the Dairy Council of California in Irvine, probiotics work in many ways to optimize health and prevent chronic diseases.

"Randomized clinical trials are the gold standard in research and they had a strict criteria for choosing the studies and they actually looked at human trials which are stronger than animal trials," she is quoted as saying.

"Americans don't like to think about bacteria so it's hard for people to embrace it but there are good and bad bacteria and there is no avoiding them. Our gut is home to many bacteria and if bumping up the amount of good bacteria can optimize health and prevent chronic diseases then that's a good thing," Hoolihan added.

Other helpful ways to lower blood pressure naturally through diet include reducing carbohydrate and sugar intake, as both of these things contribute to insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction. Increasing intake of beneficial minerals like potassium, magnesium and calcium, as well as consuming healthy saturated fats like grass-fed ghee, butter, palm oil and coconut oil, is also helpful.

It is also important to increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids, both through fatty fish consumption and supplementation with omega-3-rich oils like flax, hemp, cod liver and skate liver. Omega-3s have been shown in multiple studies to reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as reduce other risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease.

Concerning probiotics, Sun added:

"We believe probiotics might help lower blood pressure by having other positive effects on health, including improving total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, cholesterol; reducing blood glucose and insulin resistance; and by helping to regulate the hormone system that regulates blood pressure and fluid balance."