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By Bay City News.
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The Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) at the University of California is looking for young children who drink cow's milk to participate in a 12-month study.
“The purpose of this UC study is to see how the type of milk young children drink affects their health, growth and development,” Kassandra Bacon, a project policy analyst at NPI, said Thursday.
Researchers are looking for children between 23 and 30 months of age. They plan to randomly assign 625 children to drink whole milk or milk with 1% fat starting at age 2.
The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that children switch from whole milk to low-fat or fat-free milk after age 2 to reduce their intake of saturated fat and calories, according to NPI.
“We will follow each participant for one year, collecting baseline and follow-up data,” said Ryan Williams, an NPI project policy analyst and registered dietitian involved in the research.
Scientists plan to track participants' body fat, diet, health and developmental outcomes. They will measure each child's height, weight, waist and head circumference.
They also plan to ask parents to monitor their children's blood lipids, cholesterol, insulin resistance and vitamin D, cognitive development and gut microbiome diversity. They will also ask parents about their child's diet and offer them free nutritional advice from a registered dietitian.
Participants can earn up to $275 in gift cards upon completing the study. Milk will be provided and delivered to participants free of charge.
Additional eligibility requirements include having health insurance, having an English-speaking parent over the age of 18, and living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Children participating in the WIC program who are lactose intolerant or allergic to milk are not eligible for the study.
Nutrition Policy Institute director and registered dietitian Lorrene Ritchie and Stanford Medicine Children's Health pediatrician and professor in the Division of General Pediatrics at Stanford University Anisha Patel are the study's principal investigators.
The Nutrition Policy Institute is part of the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of California.
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