Is it necessary to eat low-fat food to lose weight? Doctor: Whole milk makes people thinner

Summarizing existing scientific research, drinking low-fat milk will not make you thinner, 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 drink 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 evil fats that are "believed" to clog blood vessels. (Note: The relationship between saturated fat and cardiovascular disease is still controversial.)

Worse, each gram of fat contains about nine calories, so even if it doesn't clog your arteries, it will still cause you to pile up circles of 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, the U.S. Department of Agriculture explicitly recommended in its 2010 dietary guidelines that Americans increase their intake of low-fat and skim dairy products.

Low fat does not mean a good figure

However, Scott has been promoting the idea that "a low-fat diet may not necessarily make you thinner", so isn't this a conflict with 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, Kratz 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.

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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 is probably not very healthy!

Let’s take a look at what the research says, in 11 studies on cow’s milk:

Six articles suggest that dairy fat helps improve metabolic health and prevent diabetes.

One article suggested that dairy fat “might” have benefits.

Three articles concluded that there was no link between diabetes and dairy products.

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

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

A US study suggests a positive link 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 factors in each country. Curious readers may wish to find the original text to see what Kratz 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 this happening?

Everyone should be happy that they can drink whole milk without worry, right?

But then it was time for Scott's drowsy and depressing academic seminars. Why doesn’t eating more dairy fat, especially saturated fat, make people fat and sick?

The following are the author's and Scott's own inferences:

1. Association does not imply causation: Most of the studies mentioned above are observational. As Scott has said a hundred times, correlation does not mean causation. The reason why people who drank whole milk did not gain weight later was most likely because they were "not fat" so "there was no need to drink low-fat milk", not because whole milk made people thinner.

2. Fat makes people full: whole milk is rich in protein and fatty acids, both of which are nutrients that can make people full. 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."

3. Whole milk is rich in nutrients: retaining the fat in the 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 and animal studies have found that the fat in dairy products has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. This may explain why drinking whole milk makes people thin and healthy.

(Disclosure: Scottrade has no financial relationships with any dairy or nutritional food industry company.)

Conclusion

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, many people believe that cow's milk is not suitable for human consumption at all.

However, this is a very large topic that is not only beyond Scott's knowledge, but also not the focus of today's article.

Today's article simply wants to tell you: 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 the rich and pure flavor of whole milk, please feel free to drink it!

This article comes from: Dr. Scott's One-Minute Fitness Class

※For more information, please see "Dr. Scott's One-Minute Fitness Class"