The Diet Myth: The Real Science Behind What We Eat

by Tim Spector

Far from being a risk for heart disease, full-fat cheese (but not butter), despite the saturated-fat content, now shows not only no harmful effects but a consistent protective effect on heart disease and mortality.10 So although we can’t depend on the reliability of these observational epidemiological studies, which have misled us in the past, we now have a reasonable hypothesis that the regular eating of traditional cheeses could actually prevent some heart and other health problems, owing to the extra microbes. Highly processed cheese or boiled or grilled cheese contains few viable microbes and doesn’t have the same benefits. Other products like milk and fermented products containing microbes may also offer some advantages, as we shall see.