Since the associations of fermented dairy foods intake with risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) remained inconsistent, we carried out this meta-analysis on all published cohort studies to estimate the overall effect. We searched the PubMed and CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) databases for all articles within a range of published years from 1980 to 2018 on the association between fermented dairy foods intake and CVD risk. Finally, 10 studies met the inclusion criteria for this study, with 385,122 participants, 1,392 Myocardial infarction, 4,490 coronary heart disease (CHD), 7,078 stroke, and 51,707 uncategorized CVD cases. Overall, statistical evidence of significantly decreased CVD risk was found to be associated with fermented dairy foods intake (OR = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.76-0.91). In subgroup analysis, cheese and yogurt consumptions were associated with decreased CVD risk (OR = 0.87, 95% CI = 0.80-0.94 for cheese and OR = 0. 78, 95% CI = 0.67-0.89 for yogurt). Our meta-analysis indicated that fermented dairy foods intake was associated with decreased CVD risk.
Keywords: Fermented dairy foods; cardiovascular diseases; meta-analysis; probiotics.