Daily Yogurt Consumption Linked To Decreased Risk Of Diabetes

Recent findings published in the journal BMC Medicine show that regular yogurt consumption may be tied to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Researchers found that this could help prevent many suffering from type 2 diabetes-as many as 366 who currently suffer from the health issue now.

For the study, researchers examined information on 41,497 participants from the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study, 67,138 from the Nurses' Health Study and 85,884 from the Nurses' Health Study II.

"Our study benefited from having such a large sample size, high rates of follow up and repeated assessment of dietary and lifestyle factors," said lead study author Mu Chen of Harvard School of Public Health, in a news release.

Researchers noted that there were 15,156 cases of type 2 diabetes during the follow-up period, while diary consumption for type 2 diabetes risk and high consumption of yogurt was found to significantly lower the risk of developing the illness. Further analysis linked daily consumption of 28g serving of yogurt to an 18 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

"We found that higher intake of yogurt is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas other dairy foods and consumption of total dairy did not show this association. The consistent findings for yogurt suggest that it can be incorporated into a healthy dietary pattern," concluded senior researcher Frank Hu, of Harvard School of Public Health.