Does Regular Yogurt Consumption Improve Health?

Even though few studies have specifically evaluated how regular yogurt consumption affects health or health-related quality of life, many researchers have been lauding its health benefits for years.

But now Spanish researchers suggest there is no link between regular intake of yogurt and improvements in health-related quality of life, based on study results they published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

“In comparison with people that 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,” lead author Esther López-García, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, said in a press release.
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Because the majority of studies have focused on the effects of dairy products as a whole, López-García and her colleagues thought it would be interesting to evaluate the independent association between a specific type of dairy product and global health indicators.

They conducted a prospective study of 4,445 Spanish adults recruited in 2008 to 2010 and followed up until 2012. The researchers assessed habitual yogurt consumption at baseline, and they also measured the participants’ physical and mental components of health-related quality of life using the SF-12 survey.

They looked at the change in these test scores over 3.5 years and saw no statistically significant improvements. Their findings also showed no link between habitual consumption of yogurt and health-related quality of life for individuals with no diagnosed illnesses, who had never smoked, and who followed a Mediterranean diet.

While several studies have suggested that regularly eating yogurt could have a direct or indirect influence on health-related quality of life, experts say these proposed benefits may be attributed to dairy products’ calcium-rich nature, which protects bones and helps to combat osteomuscular illnesses.

“For future research, more specific instruments must be used which may increase the probability of finding a potential benefit of this food,” López-García said.

—Colleen Mullarkey

Reference

Lopez-Garcia E, Leon-Muñoz L, Guallar-Castillon P, Rodríguez-Artalejo F. Habitual yogurt consumption and health-related quality of life: a prospective cohort study. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2015;115(1):31. DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2014.05.013.