I came across several articles that claim that consuming dairy products, primarily milk, has the potential to reduce the risk of Type II Diabetes Mellitus. This claim seems to be very specific and strange, so I decided to investigate.
One study done by Hyon K. Choi from JAMA Internal Medicine concludes that a person with a high intake of dairy products may be less likely to develop Type II Diabetes. The study was conducted through questionnaires that were distributed in the late 80's and into the 90's. I found the method of testing rather odd, and I find the results to be hard to believe because of it.
Another study done by Liu et al. from the American Diabetes Association concludes that there is a negative correlation between the consumption of dairy products and Type II diabetes in women, specifically over the age of 50. This study's methods included another questionnaire by the name of SFFQ (short food frequency questionnaire).
I was curious about the effectiveness of such a method, and a study from Dermato-Endocrinology stated that the method was "modestly valid" (Nucci et al. 2013). This tells me that the studies have done what they can to create proper testing conditions, but more research still needs to happen before any truly definitive conclusions can be made.
Type II diabetes occurs when insulin is no longer able to bring glucose out of the blood stream and into the cells. If this disease is more likely to develop with a high sugar diet, then maybe the addition of dairy products simply reduces the concentration of glucose in the body in favor of other molecules like lactose, lipids, and proteins. Perhaps it's a stretch, but more evidence could provide us with a more satisfying answer.
Choi, H. K., Willett, W. C., Stampfer, M. J., Rimm, E., & Hu, F. B. (2005). Dairy consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in men: a prospective study. Archives of internal medicine, 165(9), 997-1003.
Liu, S., Choi, H. K., Ford, E., Song, Y., Klevak, A., Buring, J. E., & Manson, J. E. (2006). A prospective study of dairy intake and the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. Diabetes Care, 29(7), 1579-1584.
Nucci, A. M., Russell, C. S., Luo, R., Ganji, V., Olabopo, F., Hopkins, B., ... & Rajakumar, K. (2013). The effectiveness of a short food frequency questionnaire in determining vitamin D intake in children. Dermato-endocrinology, 5(1), 205-210.
Thank you for sharing this information. After reading this post I was more curious about the possible mechanisms behind why dairy may in fact aid in reducing the risk for type II diabetes. I came across a website that described some possible mechanisms such as: claiming to reduce "hypertension and improve metabolic syndrome","improve insulin sensitivity" and "promote weight control through glucose tolerance". Hypertension causes an increase in blood pressure, thus if you reduce that risk factor you will overall be in a more healthy state which could contribute to the reduction of risk for type II diabetes. If you increase the tolerance for glucose and increase the sensitivity of insulin, you could possibly be making these enzymes used in controlling blood glucose levels more efficient and effective at what they do which would also lead to a decreased risk of Type II diabetes. If you have a chance I recommend you read the article on the website yourself. It can be found here: https://www.dairynutrition.ca/scientific-evidence/roles-on-certain-health-conditions/milk-products-and-type-2-diabetes-an-update. I concur that surveys are a great starting point but as you stated more evidence is definitely better, and these hypotheses that I found provide us with more info and more ground to step forward on with this topic.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to also further explain that if there is an increased sensitivity in the hormone release of insulin it decreases the need for more insulin to be released into the blood stream. The less insulin in the blood stream the less likely glucose will be stored as fat which in turn would reduce the risk for type II diabetes.
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