Low-Fat Dairy May Lower Diabetes Risk

Men may want to incorporate low-fat dairy products into their diets to ward off type 2 diabetes, reported researchers in the Archives of Internal Medicine (May 9, 2005). The researchers based their findings on data from 41,254 men without a history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer at the beginning of the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

"During 12 years of follow-up, we documented 1243 [new] cases of type 2 diabetes,"said the researchers. "Each serving-per-day increase in total dairy intake was associated with a 9% lower risk for type 2 diabetes."The researchers noted, "When we examined the association with dairy products stratified by their fat contents, the significant inverse association was primarily limited to low-fat dairy consumption. Most individual low-fat dairy products and ice cream showed a similar inverse trend, but only skim milk reached statistical significance."