Whole Milk And Full-Fat Dairy May Help You Maintain Weight, Reduce Diabetes Risk

Poor nutrition is a cause of poor health. While many of us are aware of this fact and want to eat right and improve our health, we sometimes feel confused by the often contradictory messages and scientific findings appearing in the daily news. Tufts University delivered one such surprise this week, turning the tables on low-fat food advocates.
People who eat full-fat dairy products are less likely to develop diabetes than those who grimly consume low-fat (and low-pleasure) dairy alternatives, say the Tufts researchers.
Led by Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the research team looked at circulating blood biomarkers and 15 years of data for 3,333 adults participating in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study. The team discovered participants with the highest levels of dairy fat in their blood had up to 46 percent lower risk of developing diabetes over the 15-year span compared to those who had the lowest levels of dairy fats in their blood.
“There is no prospective human evidence that people who eat low-fat dairy do better than people who eat whole-fat dairy,” Mozaffarian told Time Magazine. Apparently, skim milk is not the hero we once believed.
Fat, Carbs, Sugar
“Fat gives things flavor,” Julia Child famously said. Anyone doubting the truth of her assertion need only taste, side by side, skim and full-fat milk or low-fat and full-fat yogurt. Taste buds (and Child) never lie.
Yet, full-fat dairy products contain more calories than lower fat dairy products and many people want to avoid putting on the extra pounds — one of many risk factors for d Continue reading

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Full-fat milk may protect from diabetes, study finds

Skim milk is widely thought to be the best choice for those aiming to lose weight and be healthier, but a new study found that people who consumed full-fat dairy had a lower risk of diabetes, compared to those who did not.
Researchers from Tufts University and Harvard University studied circulating blood biomarkers and 15 years of data for 3,333 adults participating in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. They observed that those with the highest levels of dairy fat in their blood had a 46 percent lower risk of developing diabetes over the study span, compared to those who had the lowest levels of dairy fats in their blood, Medical Daily reported.
“I think these findings together with those from other studies do call for a change in the policy of recommending only low-fat dairy products,” study author Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian told Time. “There is no prospective human evidence that people who eat low-fat dairy do better than people who eat whole-fat dairy.”
While many people shifted from regular dairy to skim in order to avoid the calories from full-fat dairy, past research has shown a tendency to replace fat with sugar or carbohydrates— two culprits that are even worse for diabetes risk. Three years ago, Swedish researchers observed that middle-aged men who ate high-fat dairy products were significantly less likely to become obese over 12 years, compared to men who never or rarely ate such foods, Medical Daily reported.
Mozaffarian noted that results are preliminary and should not yet be taken as diet advice.
The study was published Continue reading

Managing Diabetes: Six Healthy Steps with the Most Benefit

Want to boost your overall health with diabetes? A Johns Hopkins expert offers healthy strategies to help you control your blood sugar, protect your heart, and more.
Want more information, support, and advice about practical, everyday ways to stay healthy with diabetes? Ask your doctor about a diabetes self-management class near you. In a 2011 study from The Johns Hopkins University, people who took diabetes-education classes saw their A1C reduced by a significant 0.72 percent.
About 17.7 million Americans with diabetes take medications—pills, injections, or both—to help keep their blood sugar within a healthy range, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s important, and it’s important to take medication as prescribed, but don’t stop there. People with diabetes are two to four times more likely to have heart disease or a stroke than those without this chronic condition, according to the American Heart Association.
“It’s very important to take care of your heart health too,” says Johns Hopkins diabetes expert Rita Rastogi Kalyani, M.D., M.H.S. “Making smart choices every day can help.”
Kalyani recommends starting with these six critical steps today.
Extra pounds? Lose a little. You don’t have to be a “biggest loser” or get an “extreme makeover” to enjoy big weight-loss benefits if you have diabetes. In a nationwide study of 5,145 people with type 2 diabetes, those who shed just 5 to 10 percent of their weight (for someone weighing 175 pounds, that’s a loss of 9 to 17.5 pounds) were three times more likely to lower t Continue reading

Type 1 diabetes

Coeliac disease is more common in people who have Type 1 diabetes
If you have coeliac disease and Type 1 diabetes, you should get guidance from a dietitian about how to manage your diet.
Coeliac disease is more common in people who have Type 1 diabetes because they are both autoimmune diseases. Between 4 and 9% of people with Type 1 diabetes will also have coeliac disease.
There is no increased risk of coeliac disease in people with Type 2 diabetes.
Diagnosis
For most people, Type 1 diabetes is diagnosed before coeliac disease, although it can happen the other way around.
Some people with Type 1 diabetes appear to have mild or no obvious symptoms of coeliac disease, but their gut lining will still be damaged when they eat gluten.
Coeliac disease can be missed in people with Type 1 diabetes as the symptoms of ill health can be attributed to the diabetes.
When coeliac disease is diagnosed before diabetes, the symptoms of diabetes tend to be more severe and there is a higher likelihood of other autoimmune diseases.1
Recurrent hypoglycaemia can be a sign of coeliac disease in people with Type 1 diabetes.2 In children, having diabetes and growth problems may mean they also have coeliac disease.3
Some people with Type 1 diabetes may test negative for coeliac disease early in their diagnosis, but then positive at a later stage. British Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (BSPGHAN) recommended that children with Type 1 diabetes should be retested after three years or if symptoms occur. However, we would refer to the updated NICE guidelines which recomme Continue reading

Gluten-free diets may be tied to an increased risk of Type 2 diabetes

Gluten-free diets are all the rage, but shunning gluten may offer no benefit to overall health for most people, a new analysis suggests.
In fact, the people in the study who ate more gluten were 13 percent less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes over the 30-year study than those who ate less gluten, the researchers found.
For some individuals, there are health reasons to avoid gluten, a protein found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley. Certain people, for example, have an intolerance to gluten, which can lead to abdominal pain, bloating or fatigue. Others have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects mostly the small intestine; when people with this disease eat gluten, their immune system responds by attacking the intestine’s lining.
However, even some people who do not have celiac disease or an intolerance to gluten believe that gluten-free diets are healthier than those that include gluten products, and the researchers wanted to see whether this belief might have any scientific merit, said lead study author Geng Zong, a nutrition research fellow at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
In the study, the researchers looked at surveys conducted every two to four years in which nearly 200,000 people reported what they ate. The researchers estimated the participants’ gluten intake based on this information, and then looked at which participants went on to develop Type 2 diabetes over the 30-year study period. Type 2 — the most common form of diabetes — occurs when the body has lost the ability to use insulin efficiently. Th Continue reading