Yogurt is a common dessert many people eat in daily diet.
It is a good resource for protein, calcium, vitamin B12, potassium and magnesium.
Recent research has shown that yogurt can provide lots of health benefits. One is related to probiotics, which are good bacteria in the digestive system.
Probiotics can help treat diarrhea, keep the heart healthy, improve our immune functions, reduce symptoms of some allergies, and maintain a healthy body weight.
Eating yogurt that does not contain added sugar is also linked to lower risk of some chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and inflammatory disorders.
All the diseases threaten the health of many Americans.
A new study published in Journal of Nutrition provides new evidence that yogurt may help dampen chronic inflammation.
Inflammation is not always bad. This is because it is part of our immune system and defensive responses to fight against illness and injury.
But when inflammation lasts for a long time, it can cause chronic inflammation, and the body starts to attack itself.
Chronic inflammation is associated with many diseases, including arthritis, asthma, and inflammatory bowel disease.
The condition is also linked to obesity, heart disease and metabolic syndromes.
In the study, researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison find that eating yogurt can reduce inflammation by improving the integrity of the intestinal lining.
The research team tested 120 women, half of which were obese. One group of women ate 12 ounces of low-fat yogurt every day for 9 weeks, and the other group ate non-dairy pudding for 9 weeks.
The results showed that women eating yogurt had less risk of inflammation than women in the pudding group.
Why can yogurt help reduce inflammation?
The researchers explain that gut microbes can produce pro-inflammatory molecules called endotoxins that cross into the blood stream to cause inflammation.
Yogurt can prevent this from happening by improving the integrity of the intestinal lining.
yogurt is better than anti-inflammatory drugs like aspirin because these drugs have side effects. It is also safe, gentle and suitable for long-term use.
The researchers also suggest that eating low-fat yogurt before a meal can help improve post-meal metabolism and reduce risk of heart disease and metabolic syndromes.
Their future work will try to find what components in yogurt help reduce inflammation.
“The goal is to identify the components and then get human evidence to support their mechanism of action in the body. That’s the direction we are going,” one author says.
“Ultimately, we would like to see these components optimized in foods, particularly for medical situations where it’s important to inhibit inflammation through the diet. We think this is a promising approach.”
Copyright © 2018 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
