Low-fat milk could be linked with less aging in adults revealed a latest study published in the Journal Oxidative Medicine. People who drink low-fat milk experience several years less biological aging than those who drink high-fat (two per cent and whole) milk, the findings said. The study was conducted by researchers from Brigham Young University.
"It was surprising how strong the difference was, if you're going to drink high-fat milk, you should be aware that doing so is predictive of or related to some significant consequences," said study researcher Larry Tucker from Brigham Young University in the US.
The team examined the relationship between telomere length and both milk intake frequency (daily drinkers vs weekly drinkers or less) and milk fat content consumed (whole vs two percent vs one percent vs skim).
Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of human chromosomes. They act like a biological clock and they're extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, humans lose a tiny bit of the endcaps.
In other words, the older people get, the shorter are their telomeres. People who drank more high-fat milk, their telomeres were significantly shorter, the study says.
For every one per cent increase in milk fat consumed (drinking two per cent vs one per cent milk), telomeres were 69 base pairs shorter in the adults studied, which translated into more than four years in additional biological aging.
Adults who consumed whole milk had telomeres that were a striking 145 base pairs shorter than non-fat milk drinkers, the research revealed. Half the participants in the study consumed milk daily and another quarter consumed milk at least weekly.
Under a third of the adults consumed full-fat (whole) milk and another 30 per cent reported drinking two per cent milk. About 10 per cent consumed one per cent milk and another 17 per cent drank non-fat milk. Meanwhile, 13 per cent did not drink any cow milk.
Current Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2015-2020) encourage adults to consume low-fat milk, both nonfat and one per cent milk, and not high-fat milk, as part of a healthy diet. The study, therefore comes in as supporting evidence for the guidelines.
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