Does whole milk make you thinner? Doctor's divine answer

Current scientific research does not believe that milk fat will make people fat, nor will it increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. If you like whole milk, please feel free to drink it!

Summarizing existing scientific research, drinking low-fat milk will not make you thin, nor will it reduce the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. If you like the rich flavor of whole milk, then drink it without any guilt!

Why do we choose low-fat milk? 】

This is simple. Eating less oil must be healthier, right? Milk is rich in milk fat, mainly saturated fatty acids, which are considered to be the evil fats that clog blood vessels1. Worse, each gram of fat contains about 9 calories, so even if it doesn't clog your arteries, it will still cause you to pile up fat around your belly.

Removing the fat from milk can theoretically reduce calorie intake and help people get the nutrients in milk without gaining weight. Therefore, in its 2010 dietary guidelines, the U.S. Department of Agriculture explicitly recommended that Americans increase their intake of low-fat and skim dairy products.

But I have been promoting the idea that "a low-fat diet may not necessarily make you thinner", so isn't this contradicting whole-fat milk? Will the fat in milk send you to heaven or take you to a suite?

In 2013, Kratz et al. published a fairly complete systematic literature review in the European Journal of Nutrition to answer this question. From 1999 to 2011, Kraz et al. found a total of 16 papers studying milk and obesity. Among them, 11 articles believe that people who are accustomed to drinking whole milk and high-fat dairy products are less likely to gain weight.

˙ Among 19,000 middle-aged women, those who drank whole milk were less likely to gain weight, but those who drank low-fat dairy products were not necessarily so.

Physicians who drank more high-fat milk gained less weight over the 12 years.

˙ American adults who drank high-fat milk had a lower rate of obesity over a 10-year period than those who drank low-fat milk.

Even more surprising is that none of the 16 studies found a positive association between drinking whole milk and obesity. What? ! Isn't that strange? Drinking whole milk will not only not make you fat, but also make you thinner?

[Low fat does not mean healthy? 】

You may be thinking: drinking whole milk may not make you fat, but it’s probably not very healthy, right? Let’s see what the research says. In 11 studies on bovine milk:

• 6 articles believe that dairy fat helps improve metabolic health and prevent diabetes.

• One article suggested that dairy fat "may" have benefits.

• Three articles believed that there was no correlation between diabetes and dairy products.

• One article suggested that consuming dairy fat is harmful to metabolic health.

As for the relationship between dairy products and heart disease, it's more complicated:

• A US study found a positive association between dairy products and heart disease.

• Of the nine European studies, four found that people who consumed dairy products were less likely to suffer from heart disease, four found no association, and one found a benefit for men but not for women.

• Two studies from Australia and Costa Rica found that people who consumed dairy products were less likely to suffer from heart disease.

Why do so many studies come to such different conclusions? This is most likely related to the livestock industry, milk fat sources and confounding factor 2 in each country. Curious readers may wish to find the original text to see what Kraz et al. said. In summary, current research does not support the hypothesis that dairy products cause diabetes, obesity, or heart disease. Scholars have even often found that people who drink whole milk are healthier than those who fear fat!

Why is whole milk better? 】

Everyone should be happy that they can drink whole milk without worry, right? But then comes the drowsy and debilitating academic discussion time. Why doesn’t eating more dairy fat, especially saturated fat, make people fat and sick? The following are the author's and my own inferences:

Correlation does not imply causation

Most of the studies mentioned above are observational. As I have said a hundred times, correlation does not mean causation. The reason why people who drank whole milk did not gain weight was most likely because they were "not fat" so "there was no need to drink low-fat milk", rather than because "whole milk makes people thinner".

Fat is satiating

Whole milk is rich in protein and fatty acids, both of which are nutrients that are particularly filling. If drinking a glass of milk can make people more resistant to the temptation of junk food in the next three hours, then it doesn't seem surprising that "whole milk makes people thinner"

Whole milk is rich in nutrients

Retaining the fat in milk not only retains the fat-soluble vitamins, but also retains many fatty acids that are beneficial to the human body, such as Butyric acid, CLA (conjugated linoleic acid), and Palmitoleic acid (cis and trans palmitoleic acid). Small-scale human experiments and animal studies have found that the fat in dairy products has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, which may explain why whole milk makes people thin and healthy.

【Dr. Scott’s 1-minute reminder】:

Milk is a rather controversial food. In addition to the ethical issues arising from the industrialization of animal husbandry, the use of growth hormones and antibiotics, some people believe that cow's milk is not suitable for human consumption at all. This is a very large topic, not only beyond my knowledge, but also not the focus of today's article. This article is purely to tell you:

"Our study suggests that increasing dairy product intake may protect against the development of obesity and metabolic syndrome in overweight individuals," Dr. Pereira of Boston Children's Hospital wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002.

Current scientific research does not suggest that milk fat will make people fat, nor will it increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. If you like the rich and pure flavor of whole milk, please feel free to drink it!

This article is from Sancai Culture's "Dr. Scott's One-Minute Weight Loss Classroom"