New research into the link between cheese consumption and dementia risk has showed that high-fat cheeses such as cheddar may be good for brain health.
According to a paper published in the academic journal Neurology, higher high‑fat cheese and cream intake was linked to lower dementia risk – but low‑fat cheese and cream showed no association with the cognitive impairment.
The study led by Yufeng Du also found that high-fat cheese had a protective effect on people who did not carry APOE e4, a gene linked with Alzheimer’s disease.
While more research is needed to establish the exact causes of these outcomes, the findings hold promise for innovation opportunities in high-fat dairy while adding to the body of evidence about whole dairy’s role in human health.
Why cognitive health matters for dairy innovation
Dementia cases are projected to nearly triple by 2050, rising from 57 million in 2019 to 153 million in 2050.
There is no cure for dementia, making prevention crucial.
Dairy’s impact on health has been widely studied given its prominence in diets globally, but when it comes to dementia risk, its role is still unclear.
Broadening research into dairy and its links to cognitive health can have two major outcomes: clear up the food group’s role in human health, and inform fresh dairy product innovation opportunities.
The latter is particularly relevant for dairy food and beverage brands looking to expand into the health and wellness segment while leaning on science-backed claims.
Globally, there’s healthy demand for functional food and beverage options that cater to brain health.
Market research firm Research and Markets estimates the category will more than double in value terms by 2034, reaching $45.1 billion compared to a $19.6bn baseline in 2024.
Consumer awareness is crucial, however, for the category to really take off in the long run – making science-backed evidence into dairy’s role in cognitive health all the more important.
The study at a glance
- Objective: Investigate the association between high-fat and low-fat dairy intake and dementia risk.
- Design: Prospective cohort study using the Malmö Diet and Cancer cohort (Sweden). Participants: 27,670 adults; baseline dietary data collected between 1991–1996.
- Exposure: High-fat vs. low-fat dairy products (cheese, cream, milk, fermented milk, butter).
- Outcome: All-cause dementia (primary), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD) (secondary).
- Follow-up: Median 25 years; dementia cases identified via Swedish National Patient Register.
- Analysis: Cox proportional hazards models estimating hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals.
The study led by Yufeng Du alongside colleagues from China and Sweden examined how cheese consumption was associated with dementia risk.
The research was based on data from a Swedish observational study of 27,670 adults, where academics tracked which participants developed dementia and how their dietary choices were related to their symptoms.
The results of Du’s study were then discussed against previous research that involved large cohorts, including a Finnish cohort study, a UK Biobank-based study and four cross-sectional studies from Japan, the Netherlands, and the UK.
Do dietary choices reduce dementia risk?
Research into how dietary choices impact cognitive health have yielded mixed results.
The Mediterranean diet has been associated with slowing down cognitive decline.
But the MIND diet – which is designed to reduce the risk of dementia and is a mix between the Mediterranean diet and DASH – has been a mixed bag when it comes to how well it mitigates dementia risk.
Notably, a recent randomized controlled trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the MIND diet did not significantly improve cognitive outcomes.
Does the MIND diet allow cheese?
In the MIND diet – which is designed to reduce the risk of cognitive decline – cheese is treated as an unhealthy food that should be avoided due to its high levels of saturated fat.
But that goes against several academic research findings, including Du’s study.
While more research is needed to find out if there is a definite link between cheese consumption and cognitive health, the study’s large cohort data gives it significant statistical power and can serve as a basis for future academic work.
What makes cheese good for the brain?
While the MIND diet advises against eating too much cheese because of its saturated fat content, its that fat content that may actually be good for cognitive health.
In the paper published in Neurology, Du and her colleagues theorize that differences in fat content, other nutrients such as vitamin K2 and the food matrix between high-fat and low-fat cheese may explain high-fat cheese’s protective effects on the brain.
Previous research also suggests that fat may be key to cheese’s protective properties.
Evidence from randomized controlled trials such as Raziani’s 2018 study found that consuming regular fat cheese did not raise the levels of fat lipids in the blood – a risk factor for heart disease. And in Mendelian randomization studies, cheese has also been linked with a lower risk of diabetes and high blood pressure (both major dementia risk factors).
Emily Sonestedt, senior author on the paper, told us that because this is an observational study, the authors can only speculate about cheese’s beneficial effects.
“Cheese is a whole food with a complex food matrix – meaning that fat, protein, minerals, and bioactive compounds are packaged together in a specific structure," the scholar explained. “This includes milk fat globule membranes, which may influence lipid metabolism and vascular function differently than isolated fat.”
“In addition, hard cheeses are fermented, which can generate bioactive peptides, and some cheeses contain fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin K2,” she added.
On low-fat cheese, Sonestedt said it differs in both composition and food matrix and may lack some fat-soluble components present in full-fat cheese, adding: “Low-fat cheese was consumed much less frequently in this cohort, which limits statistical power and makes associations harder to detect.”
“Also, people often choose low-fat products because of existing health concerns. We adjusted for many of these factors, but residual confounding cannot be ruled out.”
Another key observation from the study is that not all fat sources have this potentially protective effect on brain health.
The researchers also found that substituting high-fat cheese and cream with other fatty foods such as meat, margarine and snacks increased dementia risk, suggesting that the source of fat rather than total fat content is what matters.
The analysis also adjusted for several lifestyle and health factors to try and explain the potential link between cheese consumption and cognitive health.
“Higher cheese consumers had lower overall diet quality scores and higher alcohol intake, which would be expected to increase risk,” Sonestedt said.
“At the same time, they had lower BMI, less cardiovascular disease and less use of cardiometabolic medication. This mixed pattern suggests that the association cannot be explained by general health consciousness alone.”
Ultimately, additional research is needed to build on these observations, Sonestedt said.
“Replication in other large cohorts with different dietary patterns and types of cheese is essential. Long-term intervention studies would be ideal, although they are challenging to conduct for outcomes like dementia.
“In addition, studies combining dietary data with biomarkers of intake and vascular function could help clarify whether the observed associations reflect causal pathways or broader lifestyle patterns.”
What about butter and cream?
Du’s study also found that high-fat cream lowers dementia risk - but these findings should be interpretated cautiously as previous research has been inconclusive, the authors warn.
For butter, the picture is a bit clearer: high intake was linked higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease – though among people who generally ate well, butter consumption was instead associated with lower dementia risk.
Key study outcomes
- High-fat cheese intake (≥50 g/day) was linked to a 13% lower risk of all-cause dementia and a 29% lower risk of vascular dementia (VaD) compared with low intake (<15 g/day).
- High-fat cream consumption (≥20 g/day) was associated with a 16% lower risk of all-cause dementia, and showed inverse associations with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and VaD.
- APOE e4 status mattered: High-fat cheese intake was linked to a lower AD risk only among noncarriers (HR 0.87).
- No protective effect was observed for low-fat cheese, low-fat cream, milk (high- or low-fat), fermented milk, or butter on dementia risk.
- Butter intake was associated with a higher AD risk at ≥40 g/day (HR 1.27).
- Substitution analysis suggested that replacing high-fat cheese or cream with other foods (e.g., milk, processed meat) increased dementia risk, highlighting the importance of food source rather than total fat.
Key takeaways for dairy formulation
So what does this all mean for product development?
With the new findings requiring additional research, brands cannot rely on them alone to market cheese and cream products as beneficial for cognitive health; nor should regulators use this research in isolation to inform dietary recommendations.
“Our results suggest that dietary advice for brain health should be more nuanced and focus less on single nutrients, such as saturated fat, and more on whole foods and dietary context,” Sonestedt concluded. “In this population, moderate intake of hard, fermented cheese did not appear harmful.”
The study may also inspire confidence in companies willing to invest in future research that clarifies the link between cheese and cream intake and cognitive health.
Such undertakings can be time-consuming, however - it took Danone nearly five years to secure a qualified FDA claim linking yogurt to a reduced risk of type-2 diabetes, with research into the matter emerging over two decades.
Cheese brands may still wish to explore fortification strategies to boost product value. For example, vitamin D fortification has been shown to not impact flavor according to Ganesan, et al; potentially paving the way for health-focused premium cheese ranges.
Source:
High- and Low-Fat Dairy Consumption and Long-Term Risk of Dementia Evidence From a 25-Year Prospective Cohort Study
Authors: Yufeng Du, Yan Borné, Jessica Samuelsson, Isabelle Glans, Xiaobin Hu, Katarina Nägga, Sebastian Palmqvist, Oskar Hansson, and Emily Sonestedt
Published: Neurology, January 27, 2026 issue, 106 (2) e214343