Madam, - I refer to the article "Coronary heart disease on a plate" (Health Supplement, February 20th).
As pointed out by Denis Cronin of UCD, the adverse effects of trans fats are attributable to commercially manufactured trans fats, which are mostly found in foods such as margarines, spreads, biscuits and some fried foods.
However, the piece also refers to a study suggesting that "milk and meat were also significant contributors". As a result, readers may well deduce that dairy products should be restricted in order to limit trans fat intake.
In fact, dairy products are a rich source of a natural beneficial type of trans fat known as Conjugated Linoleic Acid, or CLA, and there is no scientific evidence that the type of trans fats in dairy foods are harmful to health. On the contrary, because CLA is distinctly different from commercially produced trans fatty acids and because of its many positive biological effects, CLA was not included in the definition of trans fatty acids used in food labelling in the US in 2006.
Medical literature now identifies adequate intake of dairy foods as a common factor in reducing the disease burden of many common medical conditions, including heart disease. There is also a growing evidence to show that CLA has potent cancer-protecting properties. This may explain the results of the Norwegian Women and Cancer study (NOWAC), involving 48,844 women, which found that those who were life-long milk drinkers had a significantly lower risk of pre-menopausal breast cancer.
It is important that consumers should not be encouraged to restrict dairy intake, as this may compound the problem of low calcium intakes. Irish women consume only one-and-a-half servings of milk, cheese and yogurt daily compared with the three daily servings advised by the Department of Health and Children. Consequently, one in three of Irish women fail to achieve the average daily requirement for calcium. - Yours, etc,
AIMI BAKER, Senior Nutritionist, The National Dairy Council, Westland Square, Dublin 2.