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How about Some Granola with That? The debate over the health benefits of dairy continues with a study showing that yogurt may dampen chronic inflammation
Photo by Michael P. King
Low-fat yogurt with aronia berries.
This study was funded by the National Dairy Council, a nonprofit organization supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s national dairy checkoff program. The findings were published in the British Journal of Nutrition and the Journal of Nutrition.
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SUMMER 2018
Yogurt already has a lot going for it. A fermented dairy food, it is rich in calcium, vitamin D, and protein. Its mildly sour taste is a delight to many, and it can be dressed up with healthy, flavorful toppings such as nuts, fruit, and granola. And now there may be another good reason to eat it. Various studies show that certain dairy products may help dampen chronic inflammation, which is a prolonged, overactive immune response that can be damaging to the body. Chronic inflammation is associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic diseases. This promising research was the impetus behind a new investigation, directed by assistant professor of food science Brad Bolling BS'02 PhD'07, into one dairy product’s anti-inflammatory properties. “We wanted to look at the mechanism more closely and look specifically at yogurt,” says Bolling,
whose research focuses on the role of food in preventing chronic disease. Evidence suggests that yogurt may help reduce inflammation by improving the integrity of the intestinal lining, thus preventing endotoxins — proinflammatory molecules produced by gut microbes — from crossing into the bloodstream. Bolling’s yogurt study set out to explore this hypothesis. It involved 120 premenopausal women, half obese and half non-obese. Some were assigned to eat 12 ounces of low-fat yogurt every day for nine weeks; a control group ate non-dairy pudding for nine weeks. At various points during the study, Bolling and his team took fasting blood samples from participants and evaluated an assortment of biomarkers that scientists use to measure endotoxin exposure and inflammation, such as elevated blood plasma levels of specific proteins and cytokines. The results were very
