Why the science says full-fat milk is the way to go for almost everyone
The science is in – full-fat milk is the healthiest for almost everyone. Here’s what it says about weight maintenance and saturated fat.
British celebrity doctor Michael Mosley would have flipped his lid this week to read an Australian nutritionist rate full fat milk a measly six out of ten compared to its watery gruel counterpart, low fat milk, which was given full marks.
The creator of the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet and the ultra low-calorie Fast800 diet has been telling the world for years that fall-fat dairy is the way to go, largely on the basis that there is strong scientific evidence that eating full-fat milk and yoghurt is not associated with weight gain.
Mosley also believes, based on several studies in the past ten years or so, that the fat in full-fat milk and yoghurt may be protective for the heart.
Australian consumers seem to be engaging with the evidence, given the sustained trend of dropping sales of low-fat milk and ballooning popularity of the good old blue lid drop. Either that or they’ve just decided skim and semi-skimmed milk tastes awful.
I’m not a nutritionist, I’m just a health writer with, unsurprisingly, a somewhat massive interest in nutrition and exercise who has read mostly every major study on this topic in recent years, with relief and glee because I happen to think that skim milk tastes like utter crap.
That’s why I’m declaring full fat milk to be ten out of ten, definitely in the taste stakes but also because I reckon that rating is based on pretty good evidence as to full-fat milk’s effect on our health (except perhaps if you have high cholesterol or heart disease, but that is not a settled matter).
My first witness for the prosecution of dietician Susie Burrell for the crime of giving full-fat milk the disgraceful rating of six is the Heart Foundation chief dietitian Jemma O’Hanlon, who is also the Vice-President of Dietitians Australia. She says the evidence around saturated fat and full-fat dairy is mixed, but for people of healthy weight who do not have high cholesterol, there is no good reason based on science to eat low fat dairy over the full-fat variety if that’s what you prefer.
“The overall message that we want to share with Australians is that unless you have extremely high cholesterol or heart disease, you can choose what you want to consume, full fat milk or reduced fat milk,” Ms O’Hanlon says.
The advice is based on a review the Heart Foundation conducted in 2019 that found that on balance, eating full-fat dairy has a neutral effect on the heart, meaning that consuming it does not significantly increase the risk of heart disease, and nor does it decrease the risk.
“What the review discovered was that we cannot look at just a single nutrient in isolation, we need to look at the whole food, and not just the whole food but the dietary pattern that the food is consumed in,” Ms O’Hanlon says. “That’s what this evidence is based on.”
The review led to a major change in the Heart Foundation’s advice on dairy, which seems very likely to be followed by a similar change in the national dietary guidelines which are currently being reviewed.
Ms O’Hanlon agrees with Mosley that eating full-fat dairy may result in the consumption of fewer calories throughout the day, which is one of the reasons the British doctor recommends full-fat milk and yoghurt even to his ultra-low-cal devotees and even claims eating full-fat unflavoured milk, yoghurt and cheese may ultimately help you lose weight.
“Someone that consumes full-fat milk is likely to experience more satiety than if they drink a lower fat milk,” Ms O’Hanlon says. “So in that sense a person may choose to consume less unhealthy snacks because they feel fuller for longer. We find this with the consumption of full fat yoghurt and cheese.”
What if you have high cholesterol?
This is where things get contentious. The Heart Foundation does recommend in its position statement on dairy that people with high cholesterol choose low-fat dairy.
“It’s included in our position statement that the saturated fat found in dairy can increase your bad cholesterol, however again the evidence is mixed,” Ms O’Hanlon says. “What we know is that people with existing high cholesterol, if they consume more saturated fat, they‘re more likely to get a further increase.”
Mosley counters this by pointing to evidence that suggests that while eating full-fat dairy does boost “bad” LDL cholesterol, it also increases levels of the good HDL cholesterol in the body, which helps sweep up excess lipids in the blood and deliver them back to the liver to be broken down and removed. He also points to studies which suggest the type of saturated fat you find in milk and dairy seems to be protective rather than harmful.
That is in line with research that shows the health effects of saturated fat varies depending on the specific fatty acid and possibly by the specific food source the fat is obtained from. The Heart Foundation continues to recommend against high consumption of red meat.
The long and the short of it is that to play it safe, if your cholesterol is high, low-fat milk might not be a bad idea to be safe, however full-fat yoghurt is probably not an issue.
For everyone else, the take home message is drink whatever milk you like, as part of a diverse and balanced diet.
More Coverage
The days of coins are numbered — but it ain’t all bad
The former boss of the Royal Australian Mint predicts coins could be out of circulation as soon as 2030. But for canny investors, they could be worth more than ever.
Melbourne: through a migrant’s lens
David Niu emigrated from Shanghai in 2007, and says he still struggles with the language barrier in Australia. But his street photography of his adopted city speaks volumes.