The Study
Diets with high-fat cheese, high-fat meat, or carbohydrate on cardiovascular risk markers in overweight postmenopausal women: a randomized crossover trial.
This study showed that when women ate more cheese or meat instead of carbs, some good blood markers went up. But it didn't check if they got fewer heart attacks — so we can't say cheese or meat actually prevents heart disease, just that it changed some numbers in their blood.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Scientists gave women three different diets for two weeks each: one with lots of cheese, one with lots of meat, and one with lots of carbs. They checked blood and poop to see what happened.
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 560 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1These changes suggest cheese and meat might be less harmful to heart health than low-fat, high-carb diets, but the effects are small and short-term.
- 2Cheese raised 'good' cholesterol (HDL) by 5% and apo A-I by 8%.
- 3Meat raised HDL by 8% and apo A-I by 4%.
- 4Both made more fat and bile acids show up in poop than carbs.
- 5Neither changed bad cholesterol or triglycerides.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
The American journal of clinical nutrition
Year
2015
Authors
T. K. Thorning, Farinaz Raziani, N. T. Bendsen, A. Astrup, T. Tholstrup, A. Raben
Related Content
Claims (5)
In overweight women after menopause, eating a diet high in meat for two weeks raises HDL cholesterol by 8% and apolipoprotein A-I by 4% compared to a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, with no change in LDL cholesterol or triglycerides.
In overweight women after menopause, swapping fat from cheese or meat for carbohydrates does not change levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, or triglycerides.
In overweight women after menopause, eating a lot of cheese for two weeks raises HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein A-I levels while lowering the ratio of apolipoprotein B to apolipoprotein A-I, compared to eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
In overweight women after menopause, eating a lot of cheese results in 1.8 more grams of fat in the stool per day than eating a high-carbohydrate diet and 0.9 more grams than eating a high-meat diet, showing that not all dietary fat is absorbed.
In overweight women after menopause, eating a lot of cheese or meat leads to higher levels of bile acids in feces than eating a high-carbohydrate diet, and the types of bile acids differ between cheese and meat diets.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.