Real Males Eat Yogurt; May 2012; Scientific American Magazine; by Elie Dolgin; 1 Page(s)

Last sum­mer a team of researchers from the Massa­chusetts Institute of Technology set out to better understand the effects of yogurt on obesity. They were following up on the results of a long-term study from the Harvard School of Public Health that had suggested yogurt, more than any other food, helped to prevent age-related weight gain. The M.I.T. team, led by cancer biologist Susan Erdman and evolutionary geneticist Eric Alm, wanted to replicate the work in mice. The researchers took a group of 40 males and 40 females and either fed the animals a high-fat, low-fiber, low-nutrient diet meant to mimic junk food or fed them standard mouse meals. They then supple­mented half of each diet group with vanilla-flavored yogurt.

Their goal was to understand how a probiotic diet affects rates of obesity and its related compli­ca­tions, including cancer. But “the most entertaining aspects of all this were things we didn’t anticipate,” Erdman says.