The Study
The relationship between fermented food intake and mortality risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Netherlands cohort
This study watched what people ate for 15 years and saw who got sick or passed away. It found that people who ate more cheese sometimes lived longer, but it’s not clear if cheese caused that — maybe they just ate healthier overall. So we can say cheese is linked to lower stroke risk, but we can’t say cheese stops strokes.
Analysis score
Maximum 72 for a cohort study.
Where the score came from
Scientists followed 34,000 Dutch people for 15 years to see if eating fermented foods like cheese, yogurt, or sauerkraut helped them live longer.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 552 / 100
Quality score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1The cheese-stroke link might be a fluke — it didn't hold up when researchers checked if it was real over time.
- 2Other fermented foods showed no consistent benefit.
- 3People who ate the most cheese had a 41% lower risk of dying from stroke, but this link disappeared when looking only at the first 5–8 years.
- 4Yogurt and fermented vegetables showed small links to lower death risk, but those also vanished over time.
- 5Overall, fermented foods like yogurt and sauerkraut didn't clearly help people live longer.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
British Journal of Nutrition
Year
2015
Authors
J. Praagman, G. Dalmeijer, Y. T. van der Schouw, S. Soedamah-Muthu, W. Monique Verschuren, H. Bas Bueno-de-Mesquita, J. Geleijnse, J. Beulens
Related Content
Claims (7)
People who eat cheese have the same or lower risk of dying from any cause compared to those who eat less cheese.
People who eat cheese have a lower incidence of dementia compared to those who do not.
In a 15-year study of over 34,000 Dutch adults, consuming bacterial fermented foods such as yogurt, sauerkraut, and fermented meats showed no measurable difference in the risk of dying from any cause, cancer, or heart disease, after accounting for other lifestyle and dietary factors.
People who ate more cheese in a 15-year study of Dutch adults had a lower rate of death from stroke compared to those who ate less cheese.
Eating fermented dairy foods like yogurt and kefir, but not cheese, does not change the risk of dying from any cause, cancer, or heart disease in the people studied.
People who ate more fermented vegetables showed a 14% lower risk of dying from any cause in one study, but this link only appeared in non-cancer and non-heart disease deaths and vanished when researchers excluded the first 5 to 8 years of follow-up.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.