Yogurt contains probiotics—the helpful bacteria that can help regulate your digestive system (preventing stomach upset), fight against foreign pathogens (like strep, fungi, and viruses) and generally fill a key role in your immune system.
New research has found that if everyone consumer just a serving of yogurt a day, we’d reduce heart disease across the overall population. Specifically, those who ate a serving of yogurt each day were more likely to keep a lower blood pressure, the difference between especially noticible when people weren’t on medication to do the same thing.
Is it the probiotics? A healthy serving of fat? Or some sort of mentally calming action to eat yogurt everyday? The researchers didn’t express a proposed explanation (although it’s implied that a serving of any low-fat dairy product would be just as good).
If the study inspires you to add yogurt to your diet, make sure you buy organic to avoid hormones, antibiotic, cows fed genetically modified foods, etc. Not all yogurts are created equal, either—make sure live and active cultures are present to get the benefits of probiotics, and don’t go for yogurts chalk full of sugar.
If you’re vegan or just lactose intolerant, you can still get the benefits of probiotics from a supplement, although lower blood pressure isn’t necessary tied to them.
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