(P20-091-24) Fantastic Cows: The Secrets of Milk Product Consumption in Relation to Nutrient Intake and Its Associations With Cardiometabolic and Bone Health Among Adults in the US

Objectives: Milk products are key to American diets for their nutrients but their impact on cardiometabolic and bone health is unclear. With increasing cardiometabolic disorders and osteoporosis among American adults, exploring these associations is vital for health guidelines and dietary recommendations.

Methods: Participants (n=3068) aged 18-80 years old were selected from the NHANES 2017-2018 dataset. Estimates of milk product consumption were obtained from the variable DBQ197. Participants who were pregnant, breastfeeding, had unreliable dietary recall status, or failed to report their milk product consumption were excluded. Ordinal regression analyses and general linear models were used to determine the associations between milk product intake in the past 30 days with demographics, dietary, examination, and laboratory data. Statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics 29.0.1. P-value ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.

Results: 21.2%, 21.4%, 28.7%, and 28.8% of participants reported never, rarely, sometimes, and often had milk products in the past 30 days, respectively. After controlling for potential covariates, higher milk product consumption was significantly associated with higher total calories, macronutrient intakes except for fat, and all vitamins (A, B2, B12, and D) and minerals (Ca, Mg, K, and P) milk a good source of. However, only serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 was positively and significantly associated with higher milk product consumption (p < 0.001), while serum K was approaching significant (p=0.068). Higher milk product consumption was significantly associated with lower systolic (p=0.049) and diastolic (p=0.001) blood pressure, higher serum triglycerides (p=0.049), and lower HDL-C (p=0.003) levels. Milk product consumption was not associated with serum hs-CRP, glucose, and HbA1c levels. Milk product consumption was not associated with bone health, but positive trends were observed between milk product consumption and total BMD (p=0.082) as well as femoral neck BMD (p=0.072).

Conclusions: Milk products contribute significantly to nutrient intake and have mixed associations with cardiometabolic health markers and potential positive trends toward bone health. Future studies should focus on how different types of dairy affect health outcomes.

Funding Sources: N/A