Choosing Higher-Fat Dairy May Help Lower Your Prediabetes Risk, Study Finds

If you have prediabetes, it means your blood sugar level tends to run higher than the normal range but not high enough to be considered diabetes. Having prediabetes also puts you at higher risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, so it’s important to find ways to bring your blood sugar levels down into a health-supporting range.

There’s no single approach to help everyone with prediabetes, but research has shown that eating a diet rich in vegetables, fermented foods, nutritious fats, and lean protein, as well as getting regular exercise, can be beneficial.

In terms of specific nutrition guidance, the general dietary wisdom is often to go for lower-fat dairy. However, a new study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that for prediabetes risk, higher-fat products might be better. Here’s how to think about choosing the fat content that’s best for your nutrition needs.

Dairy and Prediabetes: Is There a Link?

To determine whether dairy intake is linked to prediabetes risk, researchers evaluated the dairy intake of over 74,000 participants. At the start of the study, the researchers used a food frequency questionnaire to figure out how much dairy each participant consumed. After about four years of follow-up, they found that 3.7% of the participants had developed prediabetes.

When the researchers looked at dairy intake, they noticed plain and low-fat milk was associated with a higher risk of prediabetes, while high-fat yogurt was associated with a lower risk of prediabetes.

Low-fat milk consumed with energy-dense foods, like bread, meat, and high-fat cheese, was linked to a higher risk of prediabetes.

The reason why high-fat milk might have been linked to a reduced prediabetes risk could be that the fat content may improve satiety and stabilize blood sugar levels, Lisa Andrews, RD, told Verywell.

“As it tends to be digested more slowly, [high-fat dairy] may not raise blood sugar as quickly as lower-fat dairy products,” she said.

Andrews added that a recent literature review did not confirm that dairy products (full- or low-fat) raised the risk of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, and other data has supported the use of low-fat dairy products as part of the DASH or Mediterranean diets for reducing the risk of diabetes.

The results of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition don’t necessarily mean that one type of dairy causes prediabetes versus another. Correlation does not equal causation, and other risk factors should be considered, Toby Amidor, RD, CDN, a partner with the National Dairy Council, told Verywell.

“Researchers determined...that low-fat milk consumption was more related with a clustering of risk factors and behaviors in relation to prediabetes, such as calorie intake, waist circumference, and more bread consumption,” Amidor said.

Should You Choose High or Low-Fat Dairy to Lower Prediabetes Risk?

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), a nutritious diet is part of the foundation for type 2 diabetes prevention, treatment, and management. We’re still learning about the role that dairy of any fat content may play in the prevention of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, but a few other studies corroborate the pros of higher-fat dairy:

• A study published over the summer looked at a large cohort of people in Australia and found that high-fat dairy intake seemed to have a protective effect on prediabetes risk while low-fat had a neutral effect.
• A study on Dutch participants noted that while low-fat milk intake was linked to a higher prediabetes risk, there may have been confounding factors like behaviors and overall diet that could have partly explained the link.
• Italian researchers did a meta-analysis that found moderate intake of low-fat dairy products was linked to a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but weren’t specifically looking at prediabetes risk.

More research is needed to understand the role dietary dairy choices may play in your prediabetes risk and the amount and type of dairy that’s best for you will also depend on your overall health needs and preferences.