Yogurt or cultured milk products with lactic acid bacteria

This post was originally published as  Eat Yogurt, Avoid Bladder Cancer by Laurel on Health Food blog.
 

If you love yogurt, you’re in luck. You probably already know it’s good for you, but I found a recent Swedish study that gives us more evidence. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm studied the diets of 80,000 patients in a nine-year span and published their findings in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

They concluded that women who consumed two servings of yogurt every day were 45% less likely to develop bladder cancer than those who only eat it occasionally or not at all (36% for men). What’s interesting is that the researchers found no protective benefit in other dairy products. It was only the yogurt or cultured milk products with lactic acid bacteria.

Lead study author Alicja Wolk, Ph.D., says the probiotic called lactobacillus in cultured dairy products could be responsible for providing these protective benefits. (Ref: Women’s Health, March 2009, p. 28)

Of course, it’s safe to say that most people who eat yogurt probably lead healthier lifestyles, but the findings are still significant. Yeah!