Dairy Consumption and the Risk of 15-Year Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in a Cohort of Older Australians

The effects of habitual dairy consumption and the risk of 15-year cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality in a cohort of older Australians were investigated. Participants (n = 2900) completed a validated 145-item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to investigate associations between tertiles of the dairy consumption, including low/reduced fat dairy, whole fat dairy and their ratio (ratio(LF/WF)), and risk of mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke or combined CVD. There were 548 recorded cases of CVD mortality in this cohort. For total dairy intake, a reduction in risk of CVD was only seen in tertile 2 (adjusted hazard ratio, AHR: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.55-0.93), and for CHD both tertile 2 and tertile 3 were associated with a reduced risk (both with AHR: 0.71). However there were no linear trends between total dairy consumption and any of the three outcomes. There were no associations or trends between low/reduced fat dairy or whole fat dairy consumption, or ratio(LF/WF) and any of the three outcomes in the fully adjusted model (all p > 0.05). This study found no consistent association between baseline consumption of dairy foods and the risk of CHD, stroke and combined CVD mortality.