OLD-school diet advice has been struck a blow with recent studies finding full-fat dairy products had no link to an increased risk of obesity or heart disease in children, while moderate egg consumption also had no correlation with increased cardiovascular disease.
Edith Cowan University research, published this week in Advanced in Nutrition, looked at 29 studies worldwide related to consumption of full-fat dairy products in children.
The researchers found there was no clear link between the consumption of whole-fat dairy products and weight gain, high cholesterol or high blood pressure in children. However, most studies were observational, with a lack of good quality trials noted.
The study's lead author, Associate Professor Therese O'Sullivan from ECU's School of Medical and Health Sciences, said the findings highlighted the need for better evidence in this area.
"Dietary guidelines in Australia and other countries recommend children primarily consume reduced-fat dairy products to maintain a healthy weight and good cardiovascular health," she said.
"We found studies were consistent in reporting that whole-fat dairy products were not associated with increased levels of weight gain or obesity.
"Reduced-fat dairy is generally recommended for both adults and children over the age of two years due to its lower energy and saturated fat content.
"However, studies suggest children who consumed low-fat over full-fat dairy were actually replacing those calories from fat with other foods.
"This suggests that low-fat dairy is not as filling as whole-fat dairy, which may lead kids to consume more of other foods. Health effects may depend on what these replacement foods are."
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Prof Sullivan said there was a need for evidence-based guidelines for parents, particularly with childhood obesity such an important issue.
"Parents are already overwhelmed by conflicting advice for kids' nutrition, especially when it comes to full-fat versus low-fat dairy," she said.
"We need more good quality research to inform evidence-based guidelines for parents, even if that means rethinking what we thought we knew about dairy."
This comes as team of United States-based researchers reported their findings on an investigation into the link between egg intake and cardiovascular disease, including non-fatal heart attack, fatal coronary heart diseases and stroke, using repeated measures of diet over a period of up to 32 years, starting from 1980.
Their findings are based on data from three large US cohort studies: The Nurses' Health Study (NHS), the NHS II, and the Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study (HPFS). These included 83,349 female nurses aged 30-55; 90,214 female nurses aged 25-44; and 42,055 male health professionals aged 40-75, respectively, who were free of CVD, type 2 diabetes, and cancer at the start of the study.
During the follow up period, there were 14,806 cases of CVD, including 9010 cases of coronary heart disease and 5903 cases of stroke. Most people ate between one to five eggs per week, and those with a higher egg intake had a higher body mass index, were less likely to be treated with statins, and ate more red meat.
After adjusting for age, lifestyle, and dietary factors, no association was found between egg intake and risk of CVD.
In a linked editorial, Professor Andrew Odegaard at the University of California, Irvine, says the results of the study are convincing, but "we should not put all our eggs in this observational basket for formal guidance on eating eggs".
"If frequent egg consumption is occurring in the context of an overall dietary pattern known to be cardioprotective, or eggs are being consumed for essential nutritional needs, then it is probably nothing to worry about," he says.
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