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Consumers of fermented dairy products report better diet quality overall
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Spanish adults with metabolic syndrome who consume high quantities of fermented dairy products tend to eat healthier — and more closely adhere to a Mediterranean-style diet — than those who eat less of such foods, according to a study published in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases.
“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first cross-sectional study conducted in a Mediterranean population with [metabolic syndrome] evaluating the associations between the consumption of fermented dairy products, the quality of the diet and the prevalence of [metabolic syndrome] components,” Nancy Babio, PhD, associate professor in the human nutrition unit in the department of biochemistry and biotechnology at the University of Rovira i Virgili in Reus, Spain, and colleagues wrote.
Babio and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional baseline-data analysis of 6,572 participants with overweight or obesity and metabolic syndrome who had been recruited between September 2013 and November 2016 from Spanish primary care health facilities for the PREDIMED-Plus study, a 6-year parallel group, multicenter, randomized controlled clinical trial aimed at preventing cardiovascular disease (48.5% women; mean age, 65 years). To assess participants’ diet quality, researchers administered a 143-item food frequency questionnaire and a 17-item Mediterranean diet adherence questionnaire. The food frequency questionnaire included seven items about fermented dairy product consumption, providing participants with nine possible categories of consumption. Fermented dairy products included low-fat yogurt, whole-fat yogurt and cheese. Participants also provided demographic and medical history.
Researchers measured participants’ weight and blood pressure and, after an overnight fast, collected blood samples to calculate total LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides and plasma glucose concentrations.
After adjustment for sex, age, BMI, education, smoking status and leisure time, total energy intake, the Mediterranean diet adherence questionnaire score, daily alcohol consumption and medication for metabolic syndrome components, researchers categorized participants into quartiles of fermented dairy consumption. They used Cox regression models with constant follow-up time to estimate RR and 95% CI for each component of metabolic syndrome, specifically high BP, high fasting plasma glucose, abdominal obesity, low HDL cholesterol and hypertriglyceridemia.
Researchers found that the participants who consumed the most fermented dairy products were more likely to be women and older, and to have higher HDL cholesterol concentrations and lower levels of BP, FPG and triglyceride concentration (P < .05). A higher consumption of fermented dairy products was also linked to greater use of antihypertensive or insulin medication and a lower likelihood of being a smoker. In addition, consumers of fermented dairy products had lower BP and lower rates of hypertriglyceridemia.
Researchers found that participants in the highest vs. the lowest quartile of fermented dairy consumption also consumed more fruit, vegetables, whole-meal bread, fish and nuts, and less olive oil, cookies, alcohol and white bread than the other participants (P < .05) and were more likely to consume a Mediterranean-style diet. Yogurt consumers (n = 6,019) had a higher intake of fruit, vegetables, fish and whole-meal bread and a lower intake of white bread, alcohol and cookies than those who did not consume yogurt (n = 553).
When compared with participants in the bottom quartile of cheese consumption, those in the top quartile were less likely to have low HDL cholesterol (RR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.78-0.98), and women who consumed the most cheese were less likely to have hypertriglyceridemia (RR = 0.78; 95% CI, 0.66-0.02); men did not show this association.
“With the rapid increase in the prevalence of [metabolic syndrome], urgent preventive lifestyle strategies are needed,” the researchers concluded. “The present data will be useful for setting nutritional recommendations for the elderly population with obesity and [metabolic syndrome].” – by Melissa J. Webb
Disclosures: The study was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Health. Babio reports she received payments from Danone S.A. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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