Some people are happy with low-fat milk, but some just cannot stand the taste of it. I’m lucky because I belong to the first group, and according to a new study, my habit of drinking low-fat milk can help me live 4.5 years younger.
Research on nearly 6,000 US adults showed that people who drink low-fat (non or 1%) experience several years less biological aging than those who drink high-fat (2% and whole) milk.
So here is how the study went.
What they looked at:
Milk intake frequency (daily drinkers vs. weekly drinkers or less)
Milk fat content consumed (whole vs. 2% vs. 1% vs. skim)
What the standard for comparison was: Telomere length
Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of human chromosomes. They act like a biological clock and they’re extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, humans lose a tiny bit of the endcaps. In one word, the longer your telomere length is, the younger you are.
And… the result?
The study showed that apparently, the more high-fat milk people drink, the shorter their telomeres are, meaning the older they are. Comparing people who drink 2% milk and 1% milk, the telomeres of those consuming 1% drink were 69 base pairs longer, which, translated into biological age, was more than 4 years.
So the conclusion is clear: no matter how often or how much milk you drink, you are encouraged to consume low-fat milk, both nonfat and 1% milk, instead of high-fat milk, including 2% and whole milk, as part of a healthy diet and a secret that can make you younger.
