If you feel good about eating yogurt daily in the hope that it'll make you lose a few kilos and strengthen your bones, a new study from Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain has some not-so-good news. Published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the three-and-half-year-long study - which involved more than 4,000 people - found no link between the regular intake of yogurt and improvement in physical health.The scholars examined the consumption of yogurt and the change in health score to try and verify claims that yogurt leads to lesser weight increase, lower blood pressure and a lower rate of cardiovascular diseases.
"The regular consumption of yogurt is not linked to health-related quality of life," said lead author Esther Lopez-Garcia from Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. "For future research, more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food."
"In comparison with people who did not eat yogurt, those who ate this dairy product regularly did not display any significant improvement in their score on the physical component of quality of life and although there was a slight improvement mentally, this was not statistically significant," Lopez-Garcia noted.
Until now, several research papers have suggested that the consumption of yogurt could influence health-related quality of life either directly or indirectly. For the experts, one of the reasons may be because it is rich in calcium, protecting the bones and which could help to combat osteomuscular illnesses, one of the conditions with greatest negative impact on the quality of life.
The main dietary guidelines in Spain and other countries support the consumption of dairy products as part of a healthy diet. "This is because the majority of studies have focused on the effect as a whole, but it would be interesting to evaluate the independent association between each type of product and global health indicators," the researcher points out.
With inputs from IANS