Yoghurt for diabetes

Some impressive things have had humble beginnings. The mini-skirt has its origins in a Neanderthal hunting season that was lean resulting in less hide being available. Coffee began when an Ethiopian goat herder noticed his goats were buzzing when they ate the berries of particular tree. Just like coffee and the mini-skirt yoghurt too has humble origins that date back to the third millennium BCE when goatherds again, but this time in Turkey, fermented milk in sheep-skin bags to conserve it and found they had yoghurt as a result. From sheep skin bags in Turkey yoghurt now adorns every home around the world and it is a good thing too because it is a healthy food, as has been further highlighted in a new study showing that people who eat yoghurt have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

the study involved researchers looked at medical and lifestyle histories of more than 194,000 people. The participants filled out medical and lifestyle questionnaires every two years and at the start of the study all participants were free of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

Analysis found that consuming 28g of yoghurt daily reduced the chance of developing diabetes by 18 per cent. However, overall they found no association between dairy food consumption and diabetes. This suggests that it is the fermented nature of yoghurt that yields the benefit and that the good bacteria contained in this probiotic food has effects on human physiology that ward off type 2 diabetes.

All in all it would suggest that getting into a little yoghurt would be a good thing. To go back to where we started, it a moment’s reflection also suggests that we should be a touch more respectful of those goat herders; without their keen observation skills and industrious endeavour we may have neither coffee nor yoghurt…and a world without coffee and yoghurt hardly bears contemplation.