In fact, the totality of (albeit mostly observational studies) suggests either the opposite or (just as most experimental trials) no difference, at all. Unlike you may have read on a couple of blogs, there's no convincing evidence that high-fat dairy would be significantly heart (and metabolically) healthy than low-fat airy.

and let's be honest: the 3.8% increase looks rather random - statistically significant or not, it's probably not physiologically relevant, anyway. I mean, Steinmetz' 1994 study, which observed significant increases in HDL and concomitant decreases in Apolipoprotein B (the primary apolipoprotein of chylomicrons, VLDL, IDL, and LDL particles | more about its role in heart disease in Brunzell 2008) didn't affect the public opinion, either ( Steinmetz 1994). the subjects' LDL cholesterol, triacylglycerol, insulin, and glucose concentrations worsened non-significantly, the study at hand clearly isn't going to change the opinion of the initially referenced dietitian. In view of the fact that the previously mentioned auxiliary markers of metabolic disease, i.e. Hell, you could reasonably doubt that this is more than a statistical artefact.įigure 1: Markers of metabolic health after skimmed milk and whole milk periods ( Engel 2018) The question the study at hand cannot answer, though, is whether the 3.7% increase in the study at hand is enough of an improvement to have physiologically relevant effects.

In conjunction with the potentially beneficial health effects of the milk fat globule membranes (MFGM), whose concentration is obviously much higher in whole milk, this may explain the overall positive effects on the subjects' lipid profile.

No, whole milk won't make you fat! Remember: calories count and in the study at hand, switching the subjects to whole milk did result in 'a significantly higher energy intake with whole milk compared to skimmed milk' (Engel 2018), but 'it seems that the study subjects compensated for the extra energy with whole milk by lowering their intake of carbohydrate which was significantly lower compared to skimmed milk' (ibid). Table 1: Whole milk increased the subjects' total energy intake, but that doesn't seem to be a problem in the short run (Engel 2018)

Cholesterol in whole milk vs skim milk