Lancet 392, 2288–2297 (2018)

Dietary guidelines recommend reduced dairy consumption to prevent heart disease, although evidence linking the two is scarce.

Dairy products such as milk and cheese include high levels of saturated fats, which are thought to increase blood lipid content and hence increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

A global collaboration of researchers leveraged the data from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology study, which includes data from individuals from 21 countries and 5 continents, to investigate the association between consumption of milk, cheese and yogurt and adverse cardiovascular events and mortality. They found that consumption of milk and yogurt was associated with a lower risk of these adverse events, whereas cheese consumption was statistically neutral.