| PURE Study and Full-Fat Dairy
The world’s largest observational study, the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology (PURE) Study, released its most recent paper with one of the key findings being that whole-fat dairy should be included as one of six foods that comprising a healthy diet. Multiple papers have been published from the PURE data. This one is focused on developing a globally applicable healthy diet score, called the PURE Score. The researchers analyzed data not only from PURE but also from five independent studies encompassing a total of more than 244,000 individuals from 80 countries. The PURE scoring system defined a healthy diet as one relatively high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, fish, and whole-fat dairy. A higher score was attributed to diets composed of more of these nutrient-dense foods. |
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| A higher intake of these foods correlated with improved health and a reduced risk of illness, the study found.
This research has the same limitations of all epidemiological studies in that it shows correlation, not a cause-and-effect relationship. However, PURE’s contrary finding on full-fat dairy is meaningful in that it contradicts the conventional wisdom. Dariush Mozaffarian, the influential former Dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science & Policy at Tufts University, cited this paper and acknowledged that full-fat dairy can indeed be part of a healthy diet. U.S. health recommendations have favored low-fat dairy for decades, but the PURE finding imply that high-fat dairy is the better option for health. |
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