Low-fat yoghurt is a creamy food with a sour taste, prepared with milk curdled by bacteria, in particular Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.

It can be produced with animal milk or soya milk.

It is a probiotic that can be recommended as a therapeutic agent for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (1).

The potential benefits induced by probiotics in metabolic disorders are increasingly evident and this study has analyzed, for this purpose, the data from 1999 to 2014 of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In this large-scale study, ingestion of probiotic supplements or yogurt was associated with a lower prevalence of obesity and hypertension (2).

Commercial yoghurts contain specific probiotics and vital yoghurt cultures are present in adequate quantities. Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidaemia and obesity are risks for cardiometabolic diseases. The components of the paste represent the primary factors responsible for the cardioprotective effect of yoghurt (3).

These results suggest that habitual consumption may improve glucose and insulin responses in non-diabetic individuals who have genetically superior postprandial plasma glucose (4) and may therefore be considered an antidiabetic food.

Yogurt studies

References________________________________________________________________________

(1) Association between habitual yogurt consumption and newly diagnosed non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.  Zhang S, Fu J, Zhang Q, Liu L, Lu M, Meng G, Yao Z, Wu H, Xia Y, Bao X, Gu Y, Sun S, Wang X, Zhou M, Jia Q, Song K, Wu Y, Xiang H, Niu K.  Eur J Clin Nutr. 2019 Sep 2. doi: 10.1038/s41430-019-0497-7.

(2) Probiotic Ingestion, Obesity, and Metabolic-Related Disorders: Results from NHANES, 1999-2014.
Lau E, Neves JS, Ferreira-Magalhães M, Carvalho D, Freitas P.
Nutrients. 2019 Jun 28;11(7). pii: E1482. doi: 10.3390/nu11071482.

(3) Yogurt and Cardiometabolic Diseases: A Critical Review of Potential Mechanisms.  Fernandez MA, Panahi S, Daniel N, Tremblay A, Marette A.  Adv Nutr. 2017 Nov 15;8(6):812-829. doi: 10.3945/an.116.013946.

(4) Daily Yogurt Consumption Improves Glucose Metabolism and Insulin Sensitivity in Young Nondiabetic Japanese Subjects with Type-2 Diabetes Risk Alleles.  Watanabe D, Kuranuki S, Sunto A, Matsumoto N, Nakamura T.  Nutrients. 2018 Nov 29;10(12). pii: E1834. doi: 10.3390/nu10121834.