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00:12
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mini Mikkipedia on a Monday. And today, I think it's a great time to have a discussion about dairy. So those of you who follow me on social media or who have been clients or members in the past know some of my positions stand on dairy, position stand to do like that. And I've got to say it's really contextual as to whether or not someone should choose low fat over high fat.

00:42
And the context really comes down to calories and weight loss, actually, which I understand is a more difficult concept for people in the low carb, high fat space to get their head around because fat is healthy and we should not avoid it because it's also satiating, that's full of good nutrients and we'll feel fuller for longer, so we'll eat less and those types of things. But in my experience...

01:12
There's a lot to be gained in a fat loss context when you choose a low fat dairy product over a high fat dairy product. An example was a yogurt that I purchased this week, which was a fat free Greek yogurt. A lot tartar than the creamy regular fat Greek yogurt had 110 calories per serve versus 220 calories per serve. So there was quite a lot of difference.

01:42
someone who's trying to create a calorie deficit, when they choose a fat-free or a low-fat version over the standard sort of fat, and yes, the taste is different. And I'll talk about that later, but ultimately, you've got to sort of put to the forefront, what is your ultimate goal? That said, I wouldn't want anyone to think that

02:06
high-fat dairy or not even high-fat dairy, but just regular fat dairy in itself is a bad health decision. If you look at something like the food nutrition guidelines, and I'm not sure even who would look at that anymore, or anything to do with the Ministry of Health, there is still this advice to consume low-fat dairy, which I thought needed to be updated in 2014, and I think that's still today.

02:32
particularly if we're thinking about children and feeding them low-fat dairy products, which is of course the recommendation for any kids over the age of two. In fact, there was a survey done in New Zealand, this was a few years ago now, and 88% of parents were ignoring this and still giving their kids full-fat milk, which I thought was an absolute total win. And because when you feed a kid low-fat milk, they'll likely be hungrier sooner. Full-fat milk.

03:01
Milk will keep them fuller for longer and slow down the release of the milk sugar into their bloodstream. It will keep the energy levels more stable. And this is something which you won't see on the Ministry of Health guidelines either, is that full fat dairy has been extensively studied with regards to conditions such as people with overweight or obesity and cardiovascular disease, with no real evidence to support that.

03:29
and of itself low-fat dairy over full-fat dairy was better. And it's so interesting, isn't it? Because we think about it from a nutrient standpoint. There are vitamins A, D, E, and K, and these are fat-soluble vitamins, and particularly vitamins A, D, and K. Dairy is a really good source of these. And when I say fat-soluble, what I mean is that we need fat in our...

03:57
food source to help our body absorb them. Otherwise, you can have all of these vitamins in the world that you like, but if there's no fat there, we're not going to be able to absorb them. Dairy is such a good source of this that if you're eating dairy from a health perspective and choosing low fat over full fat, you may not actually get the main benefit of these vitamins because that fat has been taken out. We often think about dairy in the context of calcium.

04:24
which is of course a super important nutrient, but we don't think about these other fat soluble vitamins or other things like the fatty acids present in the dairy fat which can be protective against cardiovascular disease, diabetes and some cancers. And this is what some of the research has shown. So there was a Swedish study over 12 years found that men who ate full fat milk, butter and included cream dairy products

04:52
were less likely to have obesity than those who avoided it. And in combination with a high intake of fruit and vegetables, it was protective against coronary events. In another study, there was a reduced risk of colorectal cancer with a consumption of more than four serves of full fat dairy. In middle-aged women, 60,000 of them compared to those with the lowest intake.

05:17
There was a meta-analysis of 16 papers, and I can link to these in the show notes for this mini-Meccapedia episode, found that 11 of these 16 papers reported beneficial effects of consuming full-fat dairy products on metabolic health outcomes. The association between dairy fat and health is much stronger in European countries than it is in the US.

05:46
consumed in the US, it's often consumed in more processed food choices, such as ice cream or pizza. Whereas Europe also retains a stronger tradition of consuming full-fat traditional dairy products such as plain cheeses, plain butter, and unsweetened yogurt. And it might also be the way that the dairy is farmed. Whereas in the United States, which is highly industrialized, there's a focus on maximizing yield per dairy cow. Whereas in...

06:13
Europe and probably here and in New Zealand as well, we are less industrialized. Cars are not likely to be fed antibiotics or hormones. And particularly in New Zealand as well, cars are more likely to be grass-fed. So what is it about dairy that makes it healthy? For one, the increased fit in the dairy products will for children be much more satisfying. As I mentioned,

06:39
and can help regulate food intake from other sources, more than potentially skim milk or trim milk options. Science also points to the fatty acid composition. So dairy fat is a rich source of butyric acid, which is a short chain fatty acid, which for the most part is produced in our gastrointestinal tract. And it's extremely beneficial for our immune system. And in a small clinical trial,

07:05
4 grams daily of oral butyrate over 8 weeks reduced inflammation in the GI mucosa and improved symptoms associated with Crohn's disease, just as an example. So the fact that dairy incorporates butyric acid and it may help protect our gut is another reason to choose full fat over the low fat versions. Full fat dairy also contains conjugated linoleic acid.

07:34
And this is naturally occurring trans fat, which we typically sort of associate trans fats with a bad type of fat. This isn't the case because it's naturally occurring. So it's quite different from what you would have found in many processed foods. But the CLA has been found to reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer in population-based research. Animal models have also found a reduced plaque formation in the arteries of rats.

08:01
and it seems that CLA is associated with better control of insulin in the body, thereby may reduce the risk of diabetes. People are very confused about dairy and our cholesterol profile, and this does come up a number of times with clients. There is research to show that there can be improvements in cholesterol profile when people choose full fat products over the low fat products.

08:28
If we place this in the context of why this matters, it often comes down to the sort of cholesterol profile, the dietary influence, and our cardiovascular disease risk. So I just want to spend a bit of time chatting a little bit about this. So the diet lipid cardiovascular disease hypothesis was established and incorporated into dietary recommendations over 50 years ago. And the concept posits that consumption of saturated fat leads to...

08:57
concentrations of blood cholesterol, atherosclerosis, which is plaque buildup in the arteries, and ultimately cardiovascular disease. And so current dietary guidance in most Western countries, United States, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, continues to lean on this rationale to maintain the advocacy for the restriction of saturated fat in the diet. And just to remind you, dairy is a source of saturated fat.

09:21
Simultaneously, there is a growing body of evidence published largely over the past two decades which has failed to convincingly demonstrate a strong causal relationship between the consumption of saturated fat as a nutrient class and poor heart health. In 2020, there was a Coq Grain analysis by Hooper et al. which reviewed 15 randomized controlled trials which were all designed for a minimum of 24 months duration.

09:48
with a total of close to 57,000 total participants, which assessed the effect of saturated fat consumption for cardiovascular disease endpoints. Now randomized clinical trials or controlled trials are the gold standard in nutrition research. These authors reported no effect on reducing saturated fat consumption on coronary heart disease related, cardiovascular disease related, or total mortality, fatality, or non-fatal heart attacks. Or...

10:17
strokes. So the relevance of that diet lipid cardiovascular disease hypothesis has been further scrutinized with the concurrent emergence of literature that reveals that blood LDL cholesterol concentrations may not be the most appropriate biomarker to determine someone's cardiovascular disease risk profile. LDL cholesterol comprises of subclasses of particles with differing cholesterol content and updated evidence highlights that these distinct particle subclasses

10:47
carry divergent, atherogenic properties, which means that those different classes give us different risks. So, for example, those large LDL particles are primarily observed to act quite benignly with CVD, whereas small dense LDL particles are more strongly associated with the development of atherosclerosis. And LDL particle concentrations, the large ones, are primarily the subclass which is influenced by dietary saturated fat.

11:16
whereas those small dense ones, the ones that are more atherogenic, are much more influenced by carbohydrate intake, which is why you get these other studies looking at sugar intake, carbohydrate intake as a whole, and our cardiovascular disease risk. Dairy foods exemplify the complexity and nuance surrounding the relationship between saturated fat and health.

11:46
but comprises of over 400 distinct types of fatty acids, which is crazy. Within this vast assortment of fatty acids, there are short chain, medium chain, there are odd chain, there are branch chain fatty acids, and these are all very structurally defined as saturated fats, but they differ in their metabolic fates and their health properties. So it's a very complex story. You can't just label it and slap it with saturated fat. It's bad.

12:16
fatty acids and what they do in the body, as I mentioned with the conjugated linoleic acid. The milk globules are these lipid tri-layers, which you find in dairy fat, which is rich in bioactive phospholipids and peptides, which potentially also contribute to dairy's protective effects.

12:41
It's clear that the diet lipid CVD hypothesis and the stigma surrounding saturated fats on a single group of nutrients, that reductionist approach, is just overly simplified. It does warrant some sort of rethink of the guidelines. For what it's worth, when I worked at AUT as a senior lecturer, we submitted a paper to the Ministry of Health when they were updating the guidelines.

13:11
podcast a number of times, Karen Zinn, Cliff Harvey, Cliff is a great mate and regular contributor as well, yet that was thrown out and ignored by our Ministry of Health, just so you know. And what we also can't ignore is that there are several unique other bioactives in dairy, which are very unique.

13:32
arise from the fermentation process of yogurt and cheese. Now, cheese is one of the biggest contributors to saturated fat if we're thinking about dairy as a class, such as those short-chain fatty acids and peptides, which are produced by bacteria, which may contribute to insulin sensitivity and reduce blood pressure respectively. There was an overview of systematic reviews and meta-analyses conducted in 2019, which

14:01
a dose response inverse relationship between dairy product consumption and type 2 diabetes, which meant that the more dairy someone consumed, the lower the risk of type 2 diabetes they had. Certainly more recently, there is more scientific awareness that recognizes this sort of complex interplay of inter-individual variation and physiologic responses to diet and disease progression.

14:27
So it is important to consider that there might need to be a personalized approach that would be more appropriate in many instances, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all approach to reflect advancements in the understanding of nutrition and health over the last 50 years. So to suggest that dairy contains saturated fat, saturated fat is bad for our heart, so we all need to eat low-fat dairy, is just far too simplistic.

14:56
and it's unfortunate that our guidelines haven't caught up to this fact. So, you know, to summarize, there is just insufficient evidence to warrant avoiding the consumption of saturated fat as a strategy for cardio metabolic disease risk. And full fat dairy products, particularly those fermented foods, may optimally protect against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease risk among people who are insulin resistant and who are at risk.

15:22
Dairy as a food matrix comprises of a complex network of nutrients and bioactives that do have these health promoting properties. We do need more studies to fully understand how foods affect us at an individual level. I think this one-size-fits-all approach for nutrient guidelines is really outdated. It's not just me that thinks this. This is a general feeling amongst the scientific community that looks at this information.

15:51
To clarify my position on dairy then, if you are someone who's eating for health and you are maintaining a healthy body weight and you don't need to consider fat loss as a goal, then my suggestion to you would be to have the regular dairy products and you don't need to seek out low-fat options. But I do think that people who weight loss is a goal and we do need to create a calorie deficit, I do think low-fat dairy is helpful in that context as I sort of opened this episode up with.

16:21
And I will say it as individual though, like if you are someone who can easily swap out full fat dairy for low fat dairy and don't feel that you're depriving yourself or it's a sacrifice, then 100% do it, you know, because you want to maximize your diet for the food you can get for the calorie budget that you have. However, if you are someone who desperately just loves full fat dairy and you want to keep it in, no problem either, it's still a healthy choice. We just have to make other.

16:50
choices and decisions, so we're still creating that calorie deficit. For example, I'm absolutely fine on low-fat dairy. I love it, actually. I love the flavor, the taste. I feel good on it. I prefer to use my calories in other ways, like, I don't know, beer, chips, things which aren't necessarily healthy, like avocado and nuts and salads and things like that. Our homemade mayonnaise. These are the types of things which I...

17:17
love to eat and I love cheese. So it's no sacrifice for me to have low-fat dairy because I like it. However, if it is a sacrifice to you and you find that you are hungrier because you eat it, then working full-fat dairy into your diet is by no means unhealthy and we just have to make considerations for the rest of your calorie budget. So, and this I guess is that personalized nature of diet, like figuring out what works best for you. And this is all within the context of

17:46
if you even tolerate dairy too. So do bear that in mind. I will say from a calorific perspective, if you're someone who loves a full fat latte, maybe a better choice for you is in fact like a black coffee with cream because you end up probably spending less calories doing that but you still get that same sort of mouthfeel from having that cream as opposed to that full fat milk. Anyway, speaking of full fat, low fat, weight loss,

18:15
I have my Unlocking Fat Loss Success series starting this Thursday. We are running six sessions over five days. So it is, you know, it's fairly full on, but in a really good way. Like everything is recorded, it's going to be available. I'll be doing some real time coaching in the Facebook page that I'm setting up. This is just giving you an opportunity to really consider some of the fundamental things which are important for fat loss, which are often overlooked.

18:44
You can't ignore stress, for example. You can't ignore these lifestyle contributors to what then occurs with your food intake. And so we explore that, we explore what works and why and what doesn't. And I'm gonna talk you through the protein sparing modified fast method that I use as part of Monday's Meta, which is super effective. So put a link in the show notes, sign up. I would love to see you. They're recorded if you can't make it live.

19:11
So it doesn't matter if you can't make one of the days, albeit I do suggest that you try to put time aside to engage in the material, because if you're interested, you're interested for a reason, and it is time to sort of put that reason at the forefront of your mind. It's a great time of year to do it actually. So I would love to see you. Anyway, we'll pop all these links in the show notes. You can catch me on Instagram, threads, and Twitter @mikkiwilliden.

19:39
Facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition head to my website mikkiwilliden.com Sign up to my series starting Thursday. All right team. Have a fab day