The Science Is In: Dairy Is Good for Your Heart
For years, full-fat dairy carried a reputation it didn’t entirely deserve. The conventional wisdom went something like this:
- Saturated fat raises cholesterol.
- Dairy contains saturated fat.
- Therefore, dairy is bad for your heart.
Many of us grew up with this logic. Low-fat yoghurt filled the shelves. Full-cream milk became something to feel guilty about. Fat-free everything abounded.
But the science has been catching up and it tells a more nuanced, and frankly more reassuring, story.
A comprehensive 2019 overview published in Advances in Nutrition (nih) examined decades of research on dairy and cardiovascular disease. Rather than relying on a single study, the researchers pooled findings from multiple systematic reviews (thorough, structured searches of all available research) and ran them through meta-analyses (a statistical method that combines results across many studies to produce a single, more reliable conclusion). The underlying evidence came from prospective cohort studies (long-term studies that follow real people over time and track their health) and randomised controlled trials (tightly controlled experiments designed to test cause and effect as fairly as possible), conducted across multiple countries. In short, they did the hard work of pulling decades of science together so we don’t have to.
What did they find?
The main findings showed that the consumption of total dairy products, whether regular- or low-fat, was not associated with increased cardiovascular risk. That’s significant. The blanket advice to avoid full-fat dairy, it turns out, isn’t supported by the weight of evidence.
More specifically, a dose-response analysis found a significantly lower risk of stroke when cheese intake was increased – with higher cheese consumption associated with meaningful reductions in stroke risk.
The picture that emerges is one where the effect of dairy on heart health depends more on the type of dairy food than on its fat content. Fermented dairy products in particular – cheese, yoghurt and milk – showed favourable associations, likely due to their unique combination of bioactive compounds, beneficial bacteria, and the way fermentation changes the structure of milk’s natural nutrients.
Why does this matter?
Because real food is complex. Dairy isn’t just the sum of its micronutrient parts – it’s a matrix of protein, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, vitamins, and, in the case of fermented products like kefir, cheese, and yoghurt, live cultures that interact with your gut and your metabolism in ways that a simple saturated fat equation simply cannot capture.
The researchers were clear: the long-standing advice to stick to low-fat dairy is increasingly hard to defend. The evidence simply isn’t holding it up anymore.
This doesn’t mean dairy is a superfood without limits. But it does mean that choosing full cream dairy is not the cardiovascular risk it was once made out to be.
At Indezi, we believe in honest food.
Our cheeses, yoghurts, and kefir are made from milk the way it’s meant to be: full of natural goodness, minimally processed, and handcrafted to preserve and enhance what’s already there. Science is increasingly confirming what generations before us already knew: good dairy, eaten as part of a balanced diet, is something to enjoy without guilt.
So have the cheese on a cracker. Guzzle the kefir. Dollop full-cream yoghurt over your breakfast. Your heart might just thank you for it.
Read more here: (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6518146/). The discussion section is particularly fascinating:
Reference: Guo J, Astrup A, Lovegrove JA, et al. Milk and Dairy Product Consumption and Cardiovascular Diseases: An Overview of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Advances in Nutrition. 2019;10(suppl_2):S76–S99. PMC6518146.