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CNN Live Today

New Study Shows Dairy May Help Reduce Risk of Diabetes

Aired April 24, 2002 - 12:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In medical news now, millions of women whose cervical cancer tests come back inconclusive could now be spared from needless worry and anxiety. New guidelines say doctors should pay -- should only test, rather, for HPV, the chief cause of cancer. Many doctors have been testing for the virus and taking biopsies of the cervix, and now the new guidelines say if the HPV test comes back negative, patients can be almost assured they do not have cancer.

Diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S. now that a quarter of Americans are considered obese, but a new study finds consuming dairy products can lower your chances of developing adult- onset diabetes.

CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us now with details on this study. Interesting.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Very interesting, Kyra. I have got to tell you I was so surprised when I read this study because often times you hear that dairy isn't such a great idea because it has all that fat in it. Well, this study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and what they found at Harvard Medical School is that when someone eats five servings of dairy or more per day, they lower their risk by 70 percent of getting a disorder called IRS. Now, has nothing to do with your taxes, IRS is Insulin Resistance Syndrome. It is bad, you don't want it. What it means is that your pancreas makes insulin, but the rest of the body doesn't process it properly, and often people how have IRS go on to have Type II diabetes or even cardiovascular disease. And so what this new study is saying is, again, if you eat more dairy, that you actually lower your risk.

Now, you might be thinking, Gosh, how can that be, you know, dairy has tons of fat in it, that can't be a good thing. Well, the authors who wrote this said, well, what we think it is is that the magnesium and the calcium that is actually in -- and the potassium that is actually in dairy, that that might have a good effect on diabetes.

PHILLIPS: All right. You say this study is preliminary, but what are the known ways that prevent diabetes? Let's go over that a little bit.

COHEN: Right, exactly. You don't want to change your diet based on any one study, and this is just one study that has found this. However, there are tons of studies that show that there are are two things that you can do to reduce your risk of getting Type II diabetes. One of them is exercise, exercise, exercise, and that is something that you should be doing your whole life, and can really reduce your risk. The other thing is keeping your weight down. People who are obese have a much higher risk of getting Type II diabetes.

PHILLIPS: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you very much.

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