Diabetes is becoming a bigger and bigger problem, specifically Type 2 Diabetes! In America, 1 of every 10 people over the age of 20 have diabetes with 90 to 95% having Type 2.  Type 2 Diabetes carries all the major health issues as Type 1. The big difference between them … Type 2 is largely preventable!  Life style and dietary choices are directly related in developing Type 2.

As you can guess from the title of this post, adding a small amount of yogurt daily to our food choices can decrease our risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes by 18%!  18% is a huge benefit for something so easy.

This information came from a study done by the Harvard School of Public Health.  They followed 41,000 men in one 14 year study, 67,000 women from a 20 year study and another 86,000 women from a third 18 year study.  The studies looked at health status and disease development for all of these 194,000 people.  The results from all 3 studies showed that eating yogurt decreased the development of Type 2 Diabetes.  The researchers than reviewed the results of 14 other studies with a total of 460,000 participants that looked at total dairy per day intake and yogurt per day intake.  The results found that total dairy consumption or non-yogurt dairy products did not have any particular effect on the development of Type 2 Diabetes.  Yogurt, and only yogurt, decreased the risk of developing diabetes.  And, even just an ounce a day was enough to have that effect!

OK, that information is really clear  –  dairy doesn’t decrease your risk of developing type 2 diabetes unless the dairy product is yogurt!  Why yogurt?  Well, that Harvard study didn’t make any conclusions but you may have already guessed.  Yogurt contains probiotics! We’ve talked a lot about probiotics.  Probiotcs provide some of the healthy, friendly bacteria that resides inside our GI tract and doing tons of great things for our health.  So, the question is  … does the friendly bacteria decrease the risk of Type 2 Diabetes?  The answer … yes!

So, some yogurt daily will help decrease our risk of developing diabetes.  For those of use who are dairyfree,  just include other foods that provide probiotics, or take a probiotic supplement.  However we do it, we can decrease our risk significantly with simple strategies!  And … I kind of love yogurt anyway …