Dairy foods with the label ‘low fat’ ought to be on our menu, if we intend to believe this study. Experts at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have shown how low-fat milk could reduce the risk of stroke.
Almost 74,961 adults aged between 45 and 83 years participated in the study. According to what as observed, people consuming low-fat dairy foods were seemingly 12% less likely to develop stroke. The risk factor associated with ischemic stroke appeared to be reduced by almost 13%. This correlation was apparently less significant in people consuming high-fat milk.
“This is the largest study to date to examine the association between consumption of total, low-fat, full-fat and specific dairy foods and the risk of stroke in adult men and women,†shared Susanna Larsson, Ph.D., the study’s first author and associate professor of epidemiology in the Division of Nutritional Epidemiology, National Institute of Environmental Medicine, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
The aforesaid protective effect could be due to specific ingredients of low-fat milk and other such foods. They are known to contain essential minerals and vitamins in the form of vitamin D, potassium, magnesium and calcium. Moreover, low-fat food is included in the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Diet. The latter is aimed at reducing blood pressure, which is a causal factor for stroke as well. In the course, consuming low-fat milk may prevent other metabolic disorders too, the scientists said.
The study is published in the recent issue of the American Heart Association (AHA) journal, Stroke.