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Cheese Or Butter?
 

We are always told to avoid all kinds of animal fat so as to prevent too much unwanted cholesterol, typically the bad one, from getting into our body. Consuming high amount of bad cholesterol, also known as low-density lipoprotein (LDL), can lead to many diseases including heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), and stroke.

Cheese and butter are classified as dairy products, which are defined as food produced from the milk of mammals. They usually contain high saturated fats. But according to Danish researchers, cheese might not be so bad as butter and should not be placed in the same category as butter.

In a paper published online on October 26, 2011 in the ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’, researchers from the University of Copenhagen reported that people who had daily servings of cheese for 6 weeks had lower LDL than when they ate a comparable amount of butter. In the study, the cheese eaters also did not have higher LDL than when they ate a normal diet.

The study, which was supported by the Danish Dairy Board and the National Dairy Research Institute, surveyed about 50 persons. Each person was told to follow a controlled diet and added a measured amount of cheese and butter daily. The cheese and butter were made from cows’ milk and equal to 13 percent of their daily energy consumption from fat. Each person was compared with himself or herself to follow changes in the body caused by the foods.

During the 6-week period, each participant ate the set amount of butter or cheese, separated by a 14-day cleansing period, which they returned to their normal diet, and then they switched to the other dairy product for another 6 weeks. For instance, if the person had eaten cheese in the first 6 weeks, he or she ate butter, and vice versa.

While more fats were added, the LDL or total cholesterol of cheese eaters did not increase but the LDL levels of butter eaters were increased by 7 percent on average. The HDL (high-density lipoprotein or the good cholesterol) declined slightly when participants ate cheese compared with when they ate butter, but not compared with their normal eating period (cleansing period).

It is suspected that cheese has a lot of calcium that has been shown to increase the amount of fat excreted by the digestive tract. A little more fecal fat during the time participants ate cheese was detected, though the amounts were not statistically significant. It is also possible that cheese contains large amount of protein and its fermentation process could have affected the way it is digested differently, comparing to butter.

Some health experts felt that the new findings would not change what cardiologists currently recommend: people should have a diet focused on whole grains and vegetables, and moderate fats. They also warned people not to start eating large amount of cheese based on the new findings.

An earlier study by researchers from Brown University, Rhode Island and Harvard School of Public Health reported that eating dairy products like milk, cheese and butter did not seem to raise the risk of heart attack.

The findings, which were published online on May 4, 2011 in the journal ‘Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases’, showed that the dairy intake of people who had heart attacks was no different to the intake of people who did not. In fact, there was no link between consumption and heart attack risk, even among those who consumed as much as 593 grams a day, and even after discounting for other factors such as smoking, alcohol and exercise.

This reminds us about eggs that were once blamed as a source of cholesterol content but scientists now admitted that eggs might also have protective nutrients. Perhaps, the adverse effect of saturated fat in dairy products on cardiovascular health is offset by presence of some beneficial nutrients.

While the two studies might have different conclusions, it does not really matter whether people choose butter or cheese provided the amount consumed is moderate.

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