Many people consider low-fat dairy products good for health. But, a new research study unveiled that higher amount of the low-fat dairy products could increase the risk of Parkinson's disease.
A research study has found that Parkinson's risk is higher among the adults who prefer to consume three servings of the low-fat dairy products regularly. The findings of the study are available in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The co-author of the research study is Katherine C. Hughes of the popular Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. The researchers compared people who consumed three servings of the low-fat dairy products with those who prefer one serving to get the final outcome.
Victims of the Parkinson's disease experience a number of problems and this neurological disorder causes tremors, muscle rigidity, impaired balance. The Parkinson's Disease Foundation reported that 60 thousand adult people in the U.S. are annually diagnosed with this condition. Reports also reveal that and one million U.S. adult persons are living with this disease. The new research study unveils important fact about the relation between the Parkinson's disease and the low-fat dairy products.
Some past research studies previously suggested a probable link between the intake of the dairy products, mainly milk, and increased risk of the Parkinson's disease. Katherine C. Hughes and the colleagues investigated this link further to unveil the relation between the low-fat dairy products and the said disease. The study included the analysis of 25 years worth of data from above 120,000 women and men.
According to the American Academy of Neurology, the research study included 80,736 women and 48,610 men. The women were the part of the Nurses' Health Study and the men were part of the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study. The participants completed health questionnaire after every two years and dietary questionnaire after every four years. The latter helped the researchers to assess the frequency of the full-fat and the low-fat dairy product consumption.
It also helped to know what kind of full-fat and low-fat dairy products were consumed by the participants. The dairy products included milk, butter, cream, ice-cream, sherbet, and cheese. The analysis discovered that 1,036 participants became the victims of the Parkinson's disease over the 25 years. The study unveiled that participants who consumed three servings of the low-fat dairy developed 34 percent higher risk of Parkinson's disease.
That means participants who consumed only one serving of the low-fat dairy products possessed a lower risk of the Parkinson's disease. The study also found that milk consumption could be specifically linked to this neurological disorder. Persons who consumed low-fat milk or the skim milk daily developed 39 percent higher risk than those who prefer less than one serving every week. The findings also reported that intake of frozen yogurt or the sherbet also increased the risk of the Parkinson's disease.
Notably, no link was found between Parkinson's disease and the intake of the full-fat dairy products. So the study pointed out that greater consumption of the low-fat dairy products may be related to higher risk of the Parkinson's disease. Though, Hughes and colleagues utter that the study is observational and so it cannot prove the cause and the effect.
The head of the research at the Parkinson's UK, Claire Bale, opines significantly. She utters that though, the study is interesting, but persons should not change their diets depending on the study's outcome, Medical News Today reported. She points out that the study could not properly determine what might explain the relation between the Parkinson's disease and the low-fat dairy product consumption.
It is true that the current study points out a relation between the low-fat dairy products and the Parkinson's disease. But, Bale adds that it is necessary to know more about why and how the dietary factors can influence the Parkinson's disease. If researchers succeed in doing this, then more opportunities could be revealed to treat this disease.
