Dairy fat could PREVENT a heart attack

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Dairy fat from milk, butter, and cheese could actually PREVENT a heart attack SEPTEMBER 21,2021

“Many studies have relied on people being able to remember and record the amounts and types of dairy foods they have eaten, which is especially difficult given dairy is commonly used in a variety of foods,” says study co-author Dr. Matti Marklund from Uppsala University, in a statement.
“Instead, we measured blood levels of certain fatty acids, or fat ‘building blocks’ that are found in dairy foods, which gives a more objective measure of dairy fat intake that doesn’t rely on memory or the quality of food databases,” Dr. Marklund continues. “We found those with the highest levels actually had the lowest risk of CVD.”
... Researchers assessed dairy fat consumption in the group of Swedish 60-year-olds by measuring blood levels of a particular fatty acid. This substance generally appears in dairy foods and is therefore useful in reflecting intake of dairy fat. Study authors tracked the group for an average of 16 years to see how many had heart attacks, strokes, and other serious circulatory events. They also looked at how many died from any cause during this time.
The CVD risk was lowest for those with high levels of the fatty acid, coming from a high intake of dairy fats. The results remained the same after accounting for factors including age, income, lifestyle, dietary habits, and other illnesses. Moreover, those with the highest levels had no increased risk of death from all causes.

Reference
"Biomarkers of dairy fat intake, incident cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality: A cohort study, systematic review, and meta-analysis", Kathy Trieu , et al., PLOS MEDICINE, Published: September 21, 2021

Mediterranean diet is good, adding meat & dairy makes it better!

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as the following two studies have recently demonstrated:

1) "A Mediterranean-style eating pattern with lean, unprocessed red meat has cardiometabolic benefits for adults who are overweight or obese in a randomized, crossover, controlled feeding trial",
Lauren E O'Connor, Douglas Paddon-Jones, Amy J Wright, Wayne W Campbell,
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 108, Issue 1, 1 July 2018, Pages 33–40

Note: they used lean read meat. I predict a follow-up study titled "A Mediterranean-style eating pattern with fatty, unprocessed red meat has the greatest cardiometabolic benefits"!


2) "A Mediterranean diet supplemented with dairy foods improves markers of cardiovascular risk: results from the MedDairy randomized controlled trial",
Alexandra T Wade, Courtney R Davis, Kathryn A Dyer, Jonathan M Hodgson, Richard J Woodman, Karen J Murphy,
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, nqy207, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqy207
Published: 22 October 2018


Quote:

Results
Compared with the LF intervention, the MedDairy intervention resulted in a significantly lower morning SBP (mean difference: −1.6 mm Hg; 95% CI: −2.8, −0.4 mm Hg; P = 0.01), lower morning diastolic blood pressure (mean difference: −1.0; 95% CI: −1.7, −0.2 mm Hg; P = 0.01) and clinic SBP (mean difference: −3.5 mm Hg; 95% CI: −6.4, −0.7 mm Hg; P = 0.02), significantly higher HDL cholesterol (mean difference: 0.04 mmol/L; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.06 mmol/L; P < 0.01), lower triglycerides (mean difference: = −0.05 mmol/L; 95% CI: −0.08, −0.01 mmol/L; P < 0.01), and lower ratio of total to HDL cholesterol (mean difference: −0.4; 95% CI: −0.6, −0.2; P < 0.001). No effects were observed for other outcome measures. Conclusions
Following a MedDiet with additional dairy foods led to significant changes in markers of cardiovascular risk over 8 wk. The MedDiet supplemented with dairy may be appropriate for an improvement in cardiovascular risk factors in a population at risk of CVD.

Alzheimer's and lack of arginine

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Arginine is especially abundant in common food such as dairy products, meat, nuts and chickpeas!

(from Dairy Council of California)

Recent study described here:

Alzheimer's breakthrough: Scientists may have found potential cause of the disease in the behaviour of immune cells..

Quote:

They observed that in Alzheimer’s, immune cells that normally protect the brain instead begin to consume a vital nutrient called arginine.

My comment:

Probably because arginine is an essential nutrient for all cells including immune cells. If there is not enough, immune cells will sequester what is available.

Arginine is an amino acid and an essential nutrient for several bodily processes, including cell division, healing and immune responses.

It is found in food, including dairy products, meat, nuts and chickpeas, but the team at Duke said that their study did not suggest eating more arginine would have an impact on Alzheimer’s risk. The blood-brain barrier regulates how much arginine can enter the brain, and the immune response that breaks down arginine would remain the same even if confronted with higher levels of the nutrient.

Really?  Dr. Pickett must be a very wise man knowing that upfront and thus excluding that therapeutic option by his statement, without doing any testing!

“The study suggests that low levels of arginine in the brain could contribute to the death of nerve cells in Alzheimer’s, but there is much more we still need to understand about how and why nerve cells die in the disease,” she added.

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Do statins or low fat diets cause osteoporosis?

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New study: "Association Between Myocardial Infarction and Fractures: An Emerging Phenomenon."

Most interesting is this, quote:

...substantial temporal variations were noted (
1979 to 1989: hazard ratio, 0.81 ...
1990 to 1999: hazard ratio, 1.47 ...
2000 to 2006: hazard ratio, 1.73 ...
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Trends were similar regardless of age, sex or fracture site. Conversely, the overall hazard ratio for death in MI cases versus controls did not change materially...

The only obvious factor that was different in the first decade (blue - less osteoporosis following a MI event) as opposed to the second and third decade of the study (red - more osteoporosis!) is the common usage of statin drugs! Perhaps a popularity of the low fat high carbohydrate diets in treating MI patients (the so-called AHA diet) may be another factor distinguishing the red from the blue decades.

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Update 16-July-2011

Another recent study found on Dr.McDougall forum, linking bone underdevelopment with malnutrition, in this case a lack of dairy products:

Thin Bones Seen In Boys with Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Quotes:

The boys in the study who were on a casein-free [READ DAIRY-FREE (added by H.)] diet had the thinnest bones. In fact, the 9 boys who were on a casein-free diet had bones that were 20 percent thinner than normal for children their age. Boys who were not on a casein-free diet showed a 10 percent decrease in bone thickness when compared to boys with normal bone development.

The study authors wrote that bone development of children on casein-free diets should be monitored very carefully. They noted that studies of casein-free diets had not proven the diets to be effective in treating the symptoms of autism or ASD.

As a side note from my own experience. It reminds me that a nurse examining children at my school in the Eastern Europe, 1960-ties (I was around 12) told us that many, about a half had unusually thin but long bones in their hands and different elbow joints, as compared with the medical reference books that she used. Those children had normal food intake, were rather well fed. I always wondered what was causing the difference and that the same factor affecting bone development may have also affected the risk of autism! What was that factor? We didn't eat breakfast cereals nor drank pop. We ate a high carb medium fat diet not much different from that of the 1930-ties or before. Definitely more sugar - sugar became very cheap in the 1960-ties, and margarine became the new "health" "food" of the day plus vegetable oils became a popular cooking fat substitute in the 1970-ties. Sugar was very expensive before WWII in Poland due to special sugar tax, then became completely unavailable during German occupation 1939-1945 and then became cheap afterwards. What else other than sugar could have done the damage?

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