High-fat cheese linked to lower risk of dementia, Swedish researchers find

Good news, cheese lovers. A study out of Sweden has found that eating high-fat cheese is associated with a lower risk of all forms of dementia.

Published in the journal Neurology under the somewhat staid title “High- and Low-Fat Dairy Consumption and Long-Term Risk of Dementia,” the long-term study followed the lives (and sometimes deaths) of 27,670 Swedes over a period of about 25 years.

The participants were 61 per cent female, with an average age of 58.1 years when they started the study between 1991 and 1996. The dementia research team piggybacked on the Malmö Diet and Cancer cohort, which was originally set up in the 1990s to study long-term connections between nutrition and cancer.

Dietary intake was evaluated using a comprehensive diet history method that combined a seven-day food diary, a food frequency questionnaire and a dietary interview. Dementia cases were identified through the Swedish National Patient Register until Dec. 31, 2020. The researchers looked for all-cause dementia, a blanket term that includes Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia and other conditions.

They found that eating 50 grams or more of high-fat cheese daily correlates with a lower risk of developing dementia. High-fat cheeses are those with more than 20 per cent fat content, including cheddar, brie, parmesan, mozzarella and gruyere.

More specifically, the risk of developing dementia was calculated at about 10 per cent for those who ate 50 grams or more of high-fat cheese per day, compared to about 13 per cent of people who ate less than 15 grams a day.

Even after adjusting for age, sex, education and overall diet, people who ate more than 50 grams of high-fat cheese per day had a 13 per cent lower all-cause dementia risk than those who ate less than 15 grams.

“For decades, the debate over high-fat versus low-fat diets has shaped health advice, sometimes even categorizing cheese as an unhealthy food to limit,” said nutrition epidemiologist Emily Sonestedt of Sweden’s Lund University in a press release about the findings.

“Our study found that some high-fat dairy products may actually lower the risk of dementia, challenging some long-held assumptions about fat and brain health.”

No such association appeared for low-fat cheese or cream, any kind of milk, or fermented milk products such as yogurt and kefir. Butter showed mixed results, including a possible increased Alzheimer’s risk at high intake compared to people who did not eat butter.

“Not all dairy products are equal when it comes to brain health,” said Sonestedt. “The few studies that have investigated this have found a correlation with cheese, so more research is needed to confirm our results and investigate whether certain high-fat dairy products really do provide some protection for the brain.”

The World Health Organization estimates that 57 million people were living with dementia in 2021, with an estimated 10 million new cases diagnosed each year. A 2022 study in The Lancet medical journal estimated cases could rise to more than 150 million by mid-century.

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