How low-fat milk could raise your Parkinson’s risk
PEOPLE who drink semi-skimmed milk are more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than those who have the full- fat variety, a study has found.
Researchers uncovered a significant link between regular consumption of lowfat dairy products – such as yogurt, milk and cheese – and the development of the neurological condition.
Those who drank skimmed or semi-skimmed milk more than once a day were 39 per cent more likely to develop Parkinson’s than those who did so less than once a week. Crucially, the same link was not seen for full-fat milk.
Harvard University researchers also analysed how often people ate other low-fat dairy products including cottage cheese and yogurt.
Those who consumed at least three servings a day had a 34 per cent greater chance of developing Parkinson’s than people who consumed less than one serving per day. The study tracked 130,000 people over 25 years.
Researcher Katherine Hughes, from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, said: ‘Such dairy products, which are widely consumed, could potentially be a modifiable risk factor for the disease.’
Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological condition that destroys cells in the brain which control movement.
Experts suspect all dairy products could raise the risk of the disease because they are thought to reduce levels of protective chemicals in the body called urates.
But they think eating full-fat products lessens this impact, as saturated fat helps to prevent the urates from being driven out of the body. Experts stressed that there were still very few people who would actually develop Parkinson’s.
Of the 77,864 in the study who consumed less than one serving per day of low-fat dairy foods, 483 people, or 0.6 per cent, developed the disease. Among those who ate more than three servings a day, the risk increased to 1 per cent.
Writing in the Neurology medical journal, researchers said: ‘A substantial body of evidence suggests that urates may be protective against Parkinson’s disease.’
But Dr Anne Mullen, director of nutrition at The Dairy Council, said: ‘Dietary factors are not at all well investigated in relation to the major causes of Parkinson’s disease, so the results here should not be over-interpreted.’