NEW YORK: In a large new study, researchers found that eating high-fat cheese or cream was associated with a lower risk of developing dementia.

Cheese lovers may cheer. But be careful about celebrating with an entire block of your favorite cheddar.

Cheese and cream are high in saturated fats, and nutrition guidelines have long recommended limiting such fats based on strong evidence that they raise LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol and increase the risk of heart attack or stroke.

Recently, however, federal health officials have questioned this advice. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has said the next edition of the federal dietary guidelines, expected in early 2026, will overturn the long-standing recommendation to limit saturated fats and instead “stress the need to eat” them. Many experts worry that such a shift could lead to more cardiovascular disease.

At the same time, there is growing debate over whether full-fat dairy products are as harmful as once believed. The new study adds to evidence suggesting that some may be neutral or even beneficial for health, including for dementia.

That does not mean saturated fats are healthy, said Emily Sonestedt, a nutritional epidemiologist at Lund University in Sweden and the study’s lead author, but rather that other aspects of certain dairy products may offset some of the risks.

Still, the research shows associations, not cause and effect, experts cautioned.

The study, published in Neurology, followed about 28,000 adults in Sweden who were between 45 and 73 years old when they were recruited in the 1990s. Participants recorded everything they ate and drank for seven days and completed detailed questionnaires and interviews.

Researchers later tracked dementia diagnoses through a national medical registry, examining whether dairy consumption at the start of the study was linked to dementia years later. Their analyses accounted for factors such as smoking, alcohol use, blood pressure and family history of cardiovascular disease.

By 2020, about 10% of people who reported eating at least 50 grams a day of high-fat cheese had developed dementia, compared with 13% of those who ate less than 15 grams a day. People who consumed at least 20 grams of high-fat cream daily were also less likely to develop dementia than those who consumed none.

The researchers found no association between dementia risk and butter, milk, fermented milk, low-fat cheese or low-fat cream.

The study has important limitations. Diet was assessed only once, at the beginning, and people’s eating habits may have changed over the decades. Sonestedt suggested that certain components of cheese — including vitamins K or B12, or minerals such as calcium — could help explain the findings.

But experts emphasized that saturated fats should not be given a free pass. Research consistently links them to long-term health risks, while unsaturated fats — from foods like olive oil, fish, nuts and seeds — are associated with better cardiovascular and brain health.

Full-fat dairy may appear beneficial when compared with diets high in refined carbohydrates, but when compared with foods such as whole grains, legumes, nuts or olive oil, those foods are consistently associated with better outcomes.

People shouldn’t eat more cheese because of this study, Sonestedt said. But the findings suggest that, in moderation, cheese can fit into a healthy diet.

The New York Times