Effects of Individual Dairy Foods

Dairy foods come in a range of forms with varying nutritional profiles and a history of various forms of processing and storage. It seems logical that this may influence effects on health. Despite all having several 

Cheese, for example, has been demonstrated in clinical trials to have a smaller effect in raising LDL-cholesterol in comparison to butter and even milk (Tholstrup et al., 2004). Cheese is unique from other dairy products due to its physical structure, whereby its fat content is encapsulated within a casein structure (Fellows, 2000). 

On the other hand, fermented dairy products such as yoghurt have been hypothesized to reduce LDL-cholesterol due to their effects on encouraging a gut microbial environment to facilitate the production of short chain fatty acids and thus reduce the synthesis of cholesterol (Nestel, 2008). Fermented dairy has in fact been proposed as a nutraceuti-cal with cholesterol-lowering potential (Chen et al., 2008). 

That not all dairy products have the same effect on disease risk has been shown in a study from Finland. In this study, reported cream intake was surprisingly inversely related to ischemic stroke, while intakes of other dairy products were not (Larsson et al., 2009). Further analyses in the Rotterdam study revealed that milk and milk products (all kinds of milk, yogurt, coffee creamer, custard, curd, pudding, porridge, and cream) were inversely related to hypertension during follow-up, while high-fat dairy products (above 3.5% fat) were not (Engberink et al., 2009). 

When the relationship between dairy products and CHD has been studied in prospective cohort studies, the results have been mixed (Gibson et al., 2009). These differences were to a large extent explained by different dairy products and possible differences in effects between the sexes. As pointed out by Tholstrup (2006), it is important to remember that different studies have used different methods to collect information on dietary intake. This makes it difficult to compare the results from one 

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