Not a magazine goes by it seems without a dairy ad extolling milk's (or another dairy product's) role in weight loss - this of course despite the fact that Big Milk in the US admitted that there was insufficient evidence to suggest or refute that milk has any weight-related benefits after being confronted by the FTC.
Well guess what? A new meta-analysis came to a different conclusion - it came to the conclusion that dairy products do not help with weight,
"Of 49 randomized trials assessing the effect of dairy products or calcium supplementation on body weight, 41 showed no effect, two demonstrated weight gain, one showed a lower rate of gain, and five showed weight loss. Four of 24 trials report differential fat loss. Consequently, the majority of the current evidence from clinical trials does not support the hypothesis that calcium or dairy consumption aids in weight or fat loss."So back to the FTC - if Big Dairy admits there's not enough evidence, and if the evidence suggests in fact there's enough evidence to prove dairy is not a magic food covered in pixie dust that disobeys the laws of thermodynamics without affecting dietary consumption, why then are there still so many ads from Big Milk tied to weight?
Big Milk's new slogan by the way?
"Milk your Diet"It's part of their,
"Campaign for Healthy Weight"I've got to ask again, did Big Milk lie to the FTC?
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Big Milk has been lying to everyone forever about all the health benefits of dairy, from how it's the best source of calcium to how it's good for weight loss
ReplyDeleteSo - maybe a bit unrelated, but what about young kids and toddlers (let's say under 6)? Is milk beneficial for them? They need fat, but there's lots of ways to get that. By constantly giving them cow milk, are we getting them "hooked" unceccesarily?
ReplyDeleteKids and toddlers definitely need calcium and fat though there's certainly no need for them to get either from milk.
ReplyDeleteIn my home we go from breast till age 1, to homogenized till age 2 and then directly to skim.
I've also got my kids on a daily multivitamin that contains 400IU of vitamin D as that likely has as much if not more of a bearing on bone health than an adequate calcium intake.
We also try to encourage the kids to do weight bearing exercise in the form of gymnastics, dance and of course horse play.
I was under the impression that it was actually calcium that aids weight loss (with reasonable calorie consumption and exercise, of course). Do you have thoughts on this? Did the meta analysis address calcium in general or dairy specifically?
ReplyDeleteNope, not calcium.
ReplyDeleteIf you re-read the abstract I quoted in fact you'll see they looked at both calcium supplementation and dairy.
I am surprised that there's no mention that this meta-analysis was conducted by Neal Barnard from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. The PCRM has a clear agenda against dairy amongst other livestock related industries.
ReplyDeleteI am not saying this to claim that dairy products do necessarily promote weight loss but that this was a meta-analysis conducted with a bias from the outset and that can have significant effects on its conclusion because it is so dependent on inclusion criteria for studies.
It's a fair comment Rafi.
ReplyDeleteThat said, Big Milk's own analysis of the data wasn't able to support them in their fight with the FTC.
Yeah I completely agree that sufficient evidence wasn't there to promote the dairy weight loss campaigns.
ReplyDeleteThen again I do think that dairy products can be very decent protein choices on an energy restricted diet and I disagree with some people who claim that it's going to harm one's weight loss or health.
So now I'm confused. I'm used to having two glasses of skim milk (and only skim - I don't like higher fat milk) each day either on its own or over my oatmeal and such. Is there anything wrong with that?
ReplyDeleteThat's true. Dairy products never aided weight loss. Never have, never will.
ReplyDeleteThey might help you lose weight indirectly if you we depleted of calcium and other vitamins, but other than that it usually encourages weight gain!