Speaking of dairy products...

Macon Daily: Eat cheese-lose weight
The health-conscious often shun whole milk but a new study suggests that adults who favor full-fat dairy gain less weight over time.

Swedish researchers found that among more than 19,000 middle-aged women, those who had at least one serving of whole milk or cheese each day put on less weight over the next 9 years than women who consumed these foods less often.

The potential role of dairy foods in weight control won much attention after some recent studies suggested that milk, yogurt and other dairy foods might help regulate body fat. However, the picture is far from clear, as other research has failed to find that dairy products benefit the waistline.

The new findings, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, are unlikely to clear up the confusion.

For one thing, only whole milk, and not low-fat milk, seemed to offer protection against weight gain. For another, the benefit was seen only among women who were normal-weight at the start of the study.

It's always possible that the associations between dairy intake and weight gain do not reflect a direct action of dairy foods at all, according to Dr. Magdalena Rosell, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the study's lead author.

Eating habits can be seen as a marker of overall lifestyle, and women who favored whole milk might have had other habits that aided their weight control, Rosell told Reuters Health.

It's also possible that women who had already been gaining weight opted to drink low-fat milk -- making the milk a "marker," but not a cause, of weight gain, according to Rosell.