What are the benefits of yogurt?

He yogurt It is a food with high nutritional value and is versatile because it can be part of breakfast, a snack, a dessert or an ingredient for preparing salads or sauces. The first versions of this food emerged nearly 10,000 years ago, when nomadic peoples transported milk in bags made of animal casings and it soured and curdled, allowing it to be preserved for longer.

Millennia later, Yogurt is a food recommended for daily consumption by the Ministry of Health of the Nation in the Food Guidelines for the Argentine Population for its high nutritional quality, with multiple health benefits, scientifically proven, and with constant advances in its formulation.

Yogurt is a food with high nutritional value that includes high-quality proteins and fatty acids, provides calcium and micronutrients such as potassium, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, iodine, vitamins A, B2, B5, B12 and D. Calcium and vitamin D intake is deficient in our country, although this could be reversed by consuming three servings of dairy products a day (milk, yogurt and cheese), as recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for the Argentine Population.

In addition, it is extremely versatile: it can be part of a nutritious breakfast, it is an ally to improve the nutritional contribution in snacks, replacing other options of low nutritional quality such as cookies, alfajores or other snacks and it can also be incorporated as an ingredient for the preparation of salads, desserts and other preparations, and thus contribute, due to its texture and flavor, to children and adolescents incorporating foods that they normally do not ingest in any other way.

“Over the years, research has led to the recognition of the inherent benefits of yogurt, due to its contribution of different macro and micronutrients, such as proteins, calcium, iron, vitamins and, in some cases, probiotics. The latter are a real difference-maker because they provide benefits to the intestinal microbiota, the impact of which on health has been widely demonstrated,” said Vera Mandl, a graduate in Nutrition.

The specialist said that there is a lot of enthusiasm for the launch of a new yogurt with CONICET technology. Each improvement in the product represents different challenges. Based on its commitment to continue developing new and better options to contribute to bringing health to people through food, the Danone company made a technology transfer agreement with CONICET for the incorporation of a 100% Argentine probiotic.

Scientists from the Lactobacilli Reference Center (CERELA-CONICET) in Tucumán have managed to isolate the probiotic strain Lactobacillus rhamnosus CRL 1505, which belongs to the CERELA-CONICET culture collection and has shown significant benefits for respiratory and gastrointestinal health, with a significant decrease in the occurrence of infectious events such as upper respiratory tract catarrh, tonsillitis and acute diarrhea. Danone incorporated this probiotic into its sugar-free natural-flavored and strawberry-flavored drinkable yogurt recipe.

CONICET’s 1505 technology, based on the process of converting the L. rhamnosus CRL1505 strain into an ingredient or bioproduct to be incorporated into foods, went through the different phases of scientific and technological research necessary to obtain probiotic status, meeting the requirements of the relevant national and international regulatory bodies.

“The probiotic functionality of the technology, proven through clinical studies, is the ability to stimulate the host’s immune system through complex mechanisms, with the consequent increase in the immune response and its efficiency to confront or prevent respiratory and intestinal infections caused by viruses or bacteria,” explained María Pía Taranto, technical manager for the development of the technology and CONICET researcher at CERELA, adding: “These studies also demonstrated the safety of consuming the strain studied and allow our technology to be included in different types of foods such as yogurt.”

Taranto also stated: “Transforming research results into a product, in this case a food product, intended for the entire population, with scientifically proven health benefits, is for us a dream come true that makes us proud and motivates us to continue on the chosen path of doing high-quality, highly competitive science in our country, which can contribute to the well-being of the society to which we belong.”

“The articulation between the scientific sector and the socio-productive sector is essential so that our research can lead to solutions that improve the quality of life of the population in general. The incorporation of the probiotic strain L. rhamnosus CRL 1505 to the product line of a company of such magnitude that bets on national science and technology, will make it possible to make nutritionally and functionally optimal foods with a beneficial effect on health, scientifically endorsed, available to the entire society,” said Taranto.

Microbiota and effects of yogurt on health

Diet can influence the diversity of the intestinal microbiota, which is the set of microorganisms found in the intestine. It has been shown that regular consumption of yogurt modifies its composition and function, which can provide health benefits.

Gabriel Vinderola, PhD in Chemistry, CONICET researcher at the Institute of Industrial Lactology (INLAIN, CONICET – UNL) and professor at the National University of Litoral, said: “Yogurt presentations with added probiotics contain millions of bacteria and daily consumption could increase the number of bacteria in the diet up to 10,000 times. Maintaining a healthy diversity of the intestinal microbiota is key to preventing diseases, because it plays an important role in digestion and may also be essential for the development and normal functioning of the immune system and the central and peripheral nervous systems.”

Among the health benefits of yogurt, its contribution to:

• Bone health.
• Body weight management (partly because it increases the feeling of satiety, but its modulation of the microbiota is also considered to play a role).
• Reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
• Reduction of cardiovascular risk (improves lipid profiles, blood pressure and cardiometabolic risk.
• Improved oral health, because -especially options with probiotics- they modify the oral microbiota, reducing the risk of cavities and gum damage.
• Improve digestive health, because it strengthens live bacteria in the intestine and, by adding prebiotics to yogurt (often in the form of fruit), the proliferation of beneficial bacteria is stimulated.