Research

Hormonal

Higher circulating or adipose tissue levels of the dairy fat biomarkers pentadecanoic acid (15:0), heptadecanoic acid (17:0), and trans-palmitoleic acid (t16:1n-7) are associated with a significantly lower incidence of type 2 diabetes.

High levels of specific fatty acids (15:0, 17:0, and t16:1n-7) in your blood or fat tissue, which serve as biomarkers for dairy fat consumption, are linked to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. This suggests that moderate consumption of dairy products may be metabolically beneficial, contrary to the general advice to avoid all saturated fats.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In the most adjusted model, the hazard ratio (95% CI) for incident T2D per cohort-specific 10th to 90th percentile range of 15:0 was 0.80 (0.73–0.87); of 17:0, 0.65 (0.59–0.72); of t16:1n7, 0.82 (0.70–0.96); and of their sum, 0.71 (0.63–0.79).
Fumiaki Imamura et al. · PLoS Medicine · 2018

Why this rating

Large-scale pooled analysis of 16 prospective cohorts with harmonized analysis reduces bias, though residual confounding remains a limitation.

Source

Fatty acid biomarkers of dairy fat consumption and incidence of type 2 diabetes: A pooled analysis of prospective cohort studies

Fumiaki Imamura et al. · PLoS Medicine · 2018

DOI 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002670

Meta-analysis · 16 studiesCited 230×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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