When overweight or obese people eat fewer calories and either eat a little dairy or a lot of dairy, they lose about the same amount of weight and belly fat—dairy doesn’t help them lose more.
Scientific Claim
In overweight and obese adults consuming a controlled 500 kcal/day energy-restricted diet for 12 weeks, increasing dairy intake from ≤1 to 3–4 servings per day does not result in greater losses of body weight, total body fat, or intra-abdominal adipose tissue compared to low dairy intake, indicating that dairy consumption does not enhance fat loss beyond caloric restriction alone.
Original Statement
“No diet differences were observed in weight, fat, or IAAT loss; nor SAT mRNA expression of inflammation, circulating cytokines, fasting lipids, glucose, or insulin.”
Evidence Quality Assessment
Claim Status
appropriately stated
Study Design Support
Design supports claim
Appropriate Language Strength
definitive
Can make definitive causal claims
Assessment Explanation
The study is a randomized controlled trial with a control group and controlled feeding, meeting Level 1b evidence standards. The verb 'does not result in' appropriately reflects the lack of causal effect observed.
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (1)
This study gave overweight people the same low-calorie diet for 12 weeks, but some ate more dairy and others ate less — and both groups lost the same amount of weight and belly fat. So eating more dairy didn’t help them lose extra fat.