Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Dietary intervention has been established as one of the most important strategies for cardiovascular disease prevention. Dietary guidelines around the world advocate the consumption of dairy products as part of a healthy diet. Indeed, there is a substantial body of evidence reporting that milk consumption is inversely associated with the risk of hypertension, that cheese consumption is inversely associated with the risk of stroke and that yogurt consumption is associated with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. However, biological mechanisms underlying these favorable associations remain unknown. The main objective of this research project is to identify mechanisms through which the consumption of different types of dairy products influences cardiovascular health. This study will build on recent advances in biochemistry that allow to measure a broad spectrum of small molecules in the blood, named metabolites, reflecting different biological mechanisms. In this study, metabolite profiling will be conducted among 7,000 women and men who have been followed for more than 30 years in the United States. The investigation of the associations between dairy product consumption and blood concentrations of metabolites will allow to identify biological cardioprotective mechanisms induced by the consumption of these foods. This study represents the first large-scale mechanistic investigation of the association between dairy product consumption and cardiovascular health. It will provide a functional interpretation of the association between dairy product consumption and cardiovascular health by uncovering underlying biological pathways. This study will also provide strong mechanistic evidence supporting dietary guidelines and the place of dairy products in dietary prevention of cardiovascular diseases.