A Prospective Study of Dairy Intake and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women
- Simin Liu, MD, SCD123,
- Hyon K. Choi, MD, DRPH45,
- Earl Ford, MD6,
- Yiqing Song, MD, SCD1,
- Anna Klevak, PHD1,
- Julie E. Buring, SCD127 and
- JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DRPH124
- 1Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
- 2Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
- 3Department of Epidemiology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
- 4Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts
- 5Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
- 6Division of Adult and Community Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
- 7Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Simin Liu, MD, ScD, Department of Epidemiology, UCLA, 650 Charles E. Young Dr. South, 71-254 CHS Box 951772, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1772. E-mail: siminliu{at}ucla.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVE—Although studies have indicated that increased dairy intake may reduce risk of overweight and insulin resistance syndrome, data directly relating dairy intake to type 2 diabetes remain sparse.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We prospectively examined the associations between intake of dairy foods and calcium and incident type 2 diabetes in 37,183 women without a history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and/or cancer at baseline.
RESULTS—During an average of 10 years of follow-up, we documented 1,603 incident cases. After adjusting for potential confounders including BMI, smoking status, physical activity, family history of diabetes, alcohol consumption, history of hypertension, use of hormones, and high cholesterol, the relative risk for type 2 diabetes among women in the highest quintile of dairy intake was 0.79 (95% CI 0.67–0.94; P for trend = 0.007) compared with those in the lowest quintile. Each serving-per-day increase in dairy intake was associated with a 4% lower risk (0.96 [0.93–1.01]). The inverse association with type 2 diabetes appeared to be mainly attributed to low-fat dairy intake; the multivariate relative risks comparing the highest to the lowest quintiles was 0.79 (0.67–0.93; P for trend = 0.002) for low-fat dairy. The inverse relation between dairy intake and incident type 2 diabetes remained unchanged after further adjustment for dietary calcium, vitamin D, glycemic load, fat, fiber, and magnesium intake. These associations also did not vary significantly according to BMI.
CONCLUSIONS—A dietary pattern that incorporates higher low-fat dairy products may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged or older women.
- ADA, American Diabetes Association
- CARDIA, Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults
- IRS, insulin resistance syndrome
- SFFQ, semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire
- WHS, Women’s Health Study
Footnotes
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H.K.C. is currently affiliated with the Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Arthritis Research Centre of Canada, Vancouver, Canada.
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
A table elsewhere in this issue shows conventional and Système International (SI) units and conversion factors for many substances.
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- Accepted March 20, 2006.
- Received January 31, 2006.
- DIABETES CARE
