Full Fat Dairy Can Provoke Weight LOSS - The Myths of Low Fat

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For years we were sold the idea that fat makes you fat.  It seems so logical - fat in, fat on.

Everyone pushed this message from the medical establishment down and product after product was adjusted to try and reduce the fat - right through to the promotion of fat free milk and low fat spreads.

Parents were told to switch their children to skimmed milk at two years old and cream is practically a heart attack in a tub.

Then came the realisation they were wrong.  

Study after study found the reverse to be true, one noting that within every ethnicity and every socioeconomic strata - the lower the fat content of the milk, the higher the average BMI.

Pig farmers everywhere smiled knowingly, they've used skimmed milk for years to fatten pigs.

It gets even more interesting.

A 2013 cohort study found 11 of 16 studies found consuming high fat dairy as part of a normal diet was linked with a reduced risk of obesity. The authors concluded:

"The observational evidence does not support the hypothesis that dairy fat or high-fat dairy foods contribute to obesity or cardiometabolic risk, and suggests that high-fat dairy consumption within typical dietary patterns is inversely associated with obesity risk"

A 2014 Korean study exploring middle-aged women of normal weight found:

Greater intake of high-fat dairy products, but not intake of low-fat dairy products, was associated with less weight gain

They also found the lowest risk of becoming overweight was observed in those who ate the most high-fat dairy

When they studied the population as a whole they concluded:

These results suggest that high consumption of dairy products is associated with a lower prevalence of obesity.

David Ludwig of Boston's Children's Hospital said:

"Somehow this low-fat milk has become so entrenched in the nutritional psyche, it persists despite the absence of evidence. To the contrary, the evidence that now exists suggests an adverse effect of reduced-fat milk." 

Those following low fat diets immediately dismiss the idea out of hand, fat is a dirty word - we skim it from gravy and replace our butter with synthetic processed spreads.

So let's look at a pretty chart to explore HOW

The food insulin index shows us how much insulin our body needs to produce in response to eating different foods.

For people suffering diabetes, this information can be crucial to stabilising blood
sugars as this blog describes.

For others (and almost certainly for those wanting to lose weight) there are also benefits to keeping an eye on blood sugar response as Everyday Health outlines:

"Watching the glycemic load of the foods you eat can have a big impact on your health in many ways. A diet focused on foods with a low glycemic load can:

• Make it easier to lose weight and avoid the dreaded diet plateau 
• Burn more calories 
• Help prevent insulin resistance and diabetes
• Lower heart disease risk"

On the chart above

 "The foods in the bottom left corner require the least insulin (e.g. butter, olive oil and avocado) while the foods in the top right will require the most insulin (e.g. rice bubbles, cornflakes and jellybeans)"

A food isn't inherently bad because it raises blood sugars - for example we can see bananas sit pretty high up there.  Bananas also provide vitamins and minerals and so for the average person don't pose a problem as part of a balanced diet - but when it comes to dairy the opposite is true.

The key vitamins in milk are fat soluble.  As this explains, if we remove the fat, we struggle to absorb and utilise them.

Type 2 Diabetes

Correlating with the food insulin index above - a 2016 study found people who had the most dairy fat in their diet had about a 50 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes compared with people who consumed the least dairy fat.
Fat, despite it's stigma is essential; every cell in the human body is covered with a membrane of which fat is a vital part.

As studies have explored fats and their relationship with the body, they found that whilst transfats have negative impact, saturated are a different beast.

Sweden, with a healthcare system ranked 6th in the world, (neither the UK nor US feature in the top 16) immediately began researching the matter and updating public recommendations.

"Butter, olive oil, heavy cream, and bacon are not harmful foods. Quite the opposite. Fat is the best thing for those who want to lose weight."

Committee member Prof. Fredrik Nyström said:

“I’ve been working with this for so long. It feels great to have this scientific report, and that the skepticism towards low-carb diets among my colleagues has disappeared during the course of the work. When all recent scientific studies are lined up the result is indisputable: our deep-seated fear of fat is completely unfounded. You don’t get fat from fatty foods, just as you don’t get atherosclerosis from calcium or turn green from green vegetables.”

For more digging search "fat doesn't make you fat".

• 1. Arch Dis Child 2013;98:335-340 doi:10.1136/archdischild-2012-302941
• 2. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Apr;110(4):563-70. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2009.12.025
• 3. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005 Jun;159(6):543-50
• 4.Organic Production Enhances Milk Nutritional Quality by Shifting Fatty Acid Composition: A United States–Wide, 18-Month Study Charles M. Benbrook, Gillian Butler, Maged A. Latif, Carlo Leifert,
• Donald R. Davis, Published: December 09, 2013 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082429
• 5. Civitas, Healthcare Systems: Sweden & localism – an example for the UK? Oct 2013