Low-fat milk could help reduce risk of diabetes in teens

A new study by scientists in the United States has claimed that drinking a lot of low-fat milk can help reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes for teenage girls, as well as offering other health benefits once they are older.
The research, carried out at Harvard University and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, involved examining the link between consuming different foodstuffs and the attendant health risks in over 37,000 women. It was shown that women who drank around four servings of milk products each day when they were teenagers tended to be less at risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who did not consume very much milk.
The study, which was funded by milk processors in the US, found that women that drink low-fat milk during their teen years could have a 43 per cent less risk of developing diabetes in their adult years. Also, those who drank a great deal of milk as teenagers were more likely to continue this during adulthood and were more likely to be thinner than those who didn’t drink milk in their teenage years.
This follows previous research work from Harvard involving data from 440,000 people, which found that people who drink low-fat milk instead of meat as a means of getting protein were at a 17 per cent less chance of type 2 diabetes than those who did not.