Dairy consumption and higher risk of type 2 diabetes and novel metabolomic pathways

Dietary intake, an important lifestyle behavior, has a strong etiological impact on incident type 2 diabetes (T2D), via insulin resistance, blood glucose concentrations, obesity, hepatic steatosis, inflammation, gut microbiome, or other pathways [1]. In many dietary guidelines worldwide, dairy foods (with milk, yogurt, and cheese as the main ones) are recommended as part of a healthy diet. Usually, 2–3 servings per day are recommended and low-fat dairy options are often recommended. Dairy foods are rich in protein, odd-chained fatty acids, calcium, magnesium, potassium, vitamins A, D, B2, and B12, and thus considered as beneficial for health. On the other hand, dairy foods contain lactose (a potential problem for those with lactose intolerance), saturated fat and sodium, some of which could be deleterious for health. Current evidence from an overwhelming number of studies summarized in a substantial number of meta-analyses on dairy consumption supports a null or moderately beneficial association with T2D [2–4]. Overall, these meta-analyses of prospective cohort studies indicate that a higher intake of total dairy is associated with a lower risk of T2D, in particular, low-fat dairy and yogurt. Milk seems to have a null or inverse association. For cheese, a moderate inverse association has been found in some meta-analyses [5–7], whereas other meta-analyses showed null associations.