Dairy’s Role in ‘Food as Medicine’

The concept of “Food as Medicine” has gained increased attention in recent years, highlighting the connection between nutritious foods and health. This food-first approach to wellness emphasizes the growing interest in achieving health benefits top of mind for consumers today. This is good news for dairy foods, which contribute in important ways in health promotion and disease prevention.

With healthcare costs reaching $4.9 trillion in 2023, the opportunity for preventative strategies is clear. It’s important to identify and confront the root causes of poor health outcomes and recognize the role healthy eating patterns, including nutrient-dense dairy foods, can play in helping to build a well and thriving society.

The concept of food as medicine is catching on. Across the United States, communities are embracing approaches like medically tailored meals and nutrition incentives to offer a pathway to improved wellness.

To fully harness the potential for food to transform our health, we must move beyond a food’s nutrition facts panel — which provides important information about its carb, fat and protein content as well as some of its vitamin and mineral makeup — to focus on the whole food with a “sum is greater than its parts” approach.

Katie Brown, EdD, RDN, is president of the National Dairy Council (NDC), a nonprofit education organization founded by U.S. dairy farmers with a vision of a healthy, sustainable world with science as its foundation. Dr. Brown sets the strategic direction for NDC’s Scientific, Regulatory and Affairs team and serves a subject matter expert and spokesperson on dairy’s wellness benefits and the ways nutritious, responsibly produced dairy foods help nourish people across the lifespan.

A recently published peer-reviewed study by Weaver and Givens in the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition noted that growing research increasingly suggests that a food’s impact on health is far greater than its nutrients alone. Instead, every food’s unique “matrix” — its distinct and interconnected nutrients, bioactive components and physical structure — likely determines how food is digested, absorbed and used in the body, which ultimately influences its effect on health.

There is an abundance of research linking dairy foods like milk, cheese and yogurt at all fat levels to health benefits — the dairy food matrix may help explain why. The evidence indicates this “whole food package” effect may be connected to the reason dairy foods across fat levels — from non-fat and low-fat to whole-milk dairy foods — have been found to be neutral and often beneficial for heart health.

The evidence is building on the food matrix, paving the way for a new frontier of nutrition science.

Dairy foods, with their unique combination of nutrients and bioactive compounds, stand out as a delicious and nutritious health and wellness solution. Integrating these insights into food as medicine offers a clear direction for future innovations and interventions. The authors recommend continuing research in this exciting area. DF