
Is Cheese Bad for You? The Evidence Says No – With Some Exceptions - troydavis
https://blog.insidetracker.com/cheese-bad-healthy-evidence
======
Grakel
Sugar is the crack that's killing us. Cheese is fats and proteins, which we
handle very well. But the occasional fruit was our biggest source of sugar.
Its rarity makes our bodies crave it like a drug, and today it's so cheap it's
basically free.

~~~
helph67
Right on! Just see how it affects your skin (and beyond)...
[https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/a20428803/how-
su...](https://www.prevention.com/beauty/skin-care/a20428803/how-sugar-ages-
your-skin/) "In fact, collagen is the most prevalent protein in the body"

------
BearOso
> For someone with a family history of heart disease or high cholesterol,
> fresh cheeses are best due to their low cholesterol content.

Dietary cholesterol doesn’t correlate strongly with blood cholesterol. You can
eat a ton of it and your blood cholesterol won’t change one iota. That’s one
of the misconceptions behind the vilification of eggs. The article disparages
butter for the same reasons, but evidence is also showing butter was falsely
accused.

There are too many pseudoscientists in the nutrition industry. You can’t trust
anyone. The only thing I know for certain is to not overconsume. That’ll keep
you healthy 90% of the time.

~~~
EForEndeavour
You rightly point out that nutrition is rife with pseudoscience (and obsolete
scientific paradigms), and that you can't trust anyone. Here are some sources
to add credibility to your claims. As one might expect, reality is more
complex than your comment, as well as "cholesterol = bad":

[https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-
you...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/fats-
and-cholesterol/cholesterol/)

\- The biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats and
carbohydrates in your diet—not the amount of cholesterol you eat from food.

\- _For most people,_ the amount of cholesterol eaten has only a modest impact
on the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. _For some people,
though, blood cholesterol levels rise and fall very strongly in relation to
the amount of cholesterol eaten. For these “responders,” avoiding cholesterol-
rich foods can have a substantial effect on blood cholesterol levels._
Unfortunately, at this point there is no way other than by trial and error to
identify responders from non-responders to dietary cholesterol.

[https://www.cdc.gov/features/cholesterol-myths-
facts/index.h...](https://www.cdc.gov/features/cholesterol-myths-
facts/index.html)

\- Myth: Eating foods with a lot of cholesterol will not make my cholesterol
levels go up.

\- Fact: It can be complicated. We know that foods with a lot of cholesterol
usually also have a lot of saturated fat. Saturated fats can make your
cholesterol numbers higher, so it’s best to choose foods that are lower in
saturated fats. Foods made from animals, including red meat, butter, and
cheese, have a lot of saturated fats.

~~~
BearOso
Thanks for the reminder—-don’t accept what I said as fact, because we still
don’t know. Your CDC link is a little behind the times, because it’s still
claiming saturated fats are “the enemy.”

I actually read one of the sources behind your first link just before I posted
my first comment to check my facts, and in the parts not quoted by your
article it says that responders usually absorb proportional levels of HDL to
LDL, making their blood cholesterol similarly neutral to non-responders.

I’m not going to tell someone who has heart disease to go eat a ton of eggs,
but I will say that if you’re healthy you shouldn’t worry about it. Just don’t
eat too much of anything.

------
gnabgib
I'm dubious of this article. After lookup up a couple of the (unlinked)
references around apparent increase prostate cancer risk in men..

The conclusion of _Dairy Products and Cancer Risk in a Northern Sweden
Population_ [0] is the opposite "In conclusion, this study does not support
any major adverse or beneficial effects of fermented milk, non-fermented milk,
cheese, and butter in the diet from a cancer risk perspective"

The second (of three) references for this claim; _Dairy products intake and
cancer mortality risk: a meta-analysis of 11 population-based cohort studies_
[1] does mention elevated prostate cancer risk - "However, whole milk intake
in men contributed to elevated prostate cancer mortality risk significantly".
But this is about whole milk consumption (specifically, not cheese, yoghurt or
butter)

We're living in a GPT3 world.. is this the product? The references don't
support the claim (granted I only tested two of 21 references), and that last
article-summary point "If you want to be deliberate in your cheese choices,
consider sodium, calcium, calorie, and protein content" means _absolutely
nothing_

[0]:
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01635581.2019.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01635581.2019.1637441)
[1]:
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27765039/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27765039/)

~~~
troydavis
Kudos for also visiting the primary sources. Regarding this question:

> We're living in a GPT3 world.. is this the product?

No. I just found the author’s bio:
[https://nutrition.tufts.edu/profile/staff/julia-
reedy](https://nutrition.tufts.edu/profile/staff/julia-reedy)

You may have questions about the post (and they may be valid), but clearly the
author has experience reading and explaining nutrition research. Errors, if
any, may simply be errors.

~~~
gnabgib
As the submitter, perhaps you know more than I.. but where did you find the
link between that Tufts profile and the author? Given you've submitted
insidetracker more than once, perhaps you're affiliated, in which case I'm
curious why the profile isn't properly linked.

If you try and find her on insidetracker you just get a list of her articles,
or a vague blurb that doesn't even mention her Tufts appointment

~~~
troydavis
I Googled for the author’s name and degree acronym - basically, I copied the
article’s byline. Her name and degree (“MNSP”) are unique enough to find other
bio pages, including the one I linked to.

I’m not affiliated with the company or her.

------
wyclif
_evidence shows that cheese doesn’t deserve to be treated the same as meat or
milk_

Who in 2020 still thinks that meat, in and of itself, "promotes disease"?

~~~
andor
It's clearly associated with obesity, heart disease, etc.

Keeping animals too close together, like it's done in industrial-scale meat
production, provides the right conditions for diseases to mutate to something
very dangerous. The swine flu and Covid are good examples. The overuse of
antibiotics might lead to a catastrophic spread of resistant bacteria in the
future. Not all meat is produced this way, but most is.

~~~
wyclif
Beef liver isn't.

------
dade_
Parmesan is a superfood. That is all I needed to read!
[http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190127-italys-
practically-...](http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190127-italys-practically-
perfect-food)

------
Maximus9000
> "Multiple meta-analyses show that, with the exception of prostate cancer,
> cheese does not increase cancer risk"

Well, that's a fairly dangerous exception, no?

------
riffraff
the evidence is "50-80 grams/day is ok", per the article.

That is an actually tiny amount of cheese, if you can be bothered to measure
it. So yeah, indulge if you want (I do!) but be aware it's still not a very
healthy choice for daily consumption.

~~~
yaantc
As a French, that seems a very reasonable amount to me. The article says this
amount covers one or two servings, and it seems about right although I don't
have a balance at hand to check it ;) Use small helpings, of tasty cheese.

One point not covered here is that the fat in cheese, although unhealthy
animal fats, are very effective at stopping hunger. I noticed that if I take
cheese for lunch, I'm not hungry at all until diner. Without, I may feel a
need to stack late in the afternoon. And I wouldn't be surprised if this
snacking were much worse than the small portion of cheese. So it's an indirect
way for cheese to help keep a balancing diet: as a help to fight (very bad)
snacking.

Also, it's best to eat cheese for lunch, where you have the whole day to
"burn" it, and skip it for diner. At least that's the recommendation past a
certain age, where you need to be more careful about your waistline...

~~~
travisjungroth
Your comment shows the difference between American and French diet habits. A
French person having cheese for lunch means a 50gr slice of Roquefort with
some bread. An American having cheese for lunch is two slices of pizza with a
giant Coke. Then Americans are confused why the French can eat all those fatty
foods and not gain as much weight.

~~~
yaantc
Yes, and it reminds me of another effect: I don't have the reference at hand,
but I read about a study showing that to "feel full" you need a lower intake
of strong taste food versus bland food. Then the Roquefort definitely beats
the rather bland pizza cheese, no contest ;). The "smelly French cheese" is a
well known joke, but it may actually help getting full and stopping eating
with a lower calories intake than blander food.

~~~
chillacy
Oh yea, love Roquefort. I remember it was quite difficult to get where I lived
in the US maybe 10 years ago and then suddenly it started appearing at normal
supermarkets.

I've been told unpasteurized cheese is hard to get in the US still and is
somehow tastier. Haven't had a chance to confirm.

