Abstract P282: Dairy Fat and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in 3 Cohorts of US Adults

Background: Few prospective studies have examined dairy fat in relation to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Objective: We aimed to evaluate the association between dairy fat and incident CVD in US adults. Design: We followed 41,852men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2010), 70,636women in the Nurses’ Health Study (1980-2010), and 90,056 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II (1991-2011). Dairy fat and other fat intakes were assessed every 4 years by validated food-frequency questionnaires. Results: During 4,324,477 person-years of follow-up, we documented 10,834 incident CVD cases including 5,107coronary heart disease (nonfatal myocardial infarction or fatal coronary disease) and 5,843 stroke cases. In multivariate analyses, dairy fat intake was not significantly related to the risk of total cardiovascular disease (for a 5% increase in energy from dairy fat, the relative risk (RR) was 1.00, 95% CI: 0.95-1.04), or coronary heart disease [RR: 1.02; 95%CI: 0.95-1.09] or stroke [RR: 0.98; 95%CI: 0.92-1.05]. In models estimating the effects of exchanging different fat sources, compared with equivalent energy from dairy fat, a 5% replacement in energy intake of dairy fat with vegetable fat was associated with a 10% (95%CI: 8%-12%) reduction in the risk of CVD. Substitution of other animal fat with dairy fat was not significantly associated with CVD risk. Conclusion: These results suggest that replacing dairy fat with carbohydrates or other animal fat was not associated with CVD risk. However, replacing dairy fat with vegetable sources of fat was associated with a lower risk of CVD. Figure 1. RR and 95% CI for cardiovascular disease associated with isocaloric substitutions (5% of energy) of vegetable fat (A) polyunsaturated fat (B) and other animal fat (C) for dairy fat.