Should you eat Yogurt ? 

It's been reported  that this fermented, slightly acidic semisolid dairy product is useful, treating a variety of ills ranging from canker sores to colon cancer. 

Most recently, a study was presented before the American College of Gastroenterology finding that patients who consumed two 8-ounce servings of vanilla yogurt a day had half the rate of antibiotic-associated diarrhea compared with those who didn't eat yogurt. Few question the validity and finding of this study, done by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center — McKeesport Hospital. "This finding isn't surprising to me, since there has been evidence in the past that yogurt can help prevent traveler's diarrhea and some types of food poisoning," says Manfred Kroger, Ph.D., professor of Food Science at The Pennsylvania State University and a leading authority on yogurt and other dairy foods. "Basically, it's been shown that people who consume a pint a day — 16 ounces — before traveling are less likely to get Montezuma's revenge, Delhi belly, Turkey trot, or whatever else you call it." 

Yogurt is believed to help quiet a kvetching colon because of those "live cultures" ballyhooed on the container labels. To be effective, says Kroger, yogurt must contain at least two "friendly" bacteria — Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus — that have been cultured with milk or skim milk. These friendly bacteria help destroy hostile bacteria, thus protecting you from food poisoning and illness that can cause diarrhea and wreak other havoc, at least temporarily, on your intestines.

"The truth is, about 90 percent of these helpful bacteria are killed in your stomach," he says. "But about 10 percent manage to get through the small intestines and to the colon, where diarrhea occurs.

" But there's a big difference between killing bacteria and killing cancer cells.

Several years ago, news reports claimed that yogurt could fight colon cancer, citing a study by the University of Southern California School of Medicine. According to those reports, colon cancer patients who consumed yogurt one to three times a month strengthened their body's ability to fight the cancer more effectively than patients who didn't eat yogurt.

"Those reports drove me crazy," says epidemiologist Ruth Peters, Sc.D., who headed the study. "What we found was that there was a protective effect from consuming a diet that was rich in calcium. Yogurt just happens to be among the best calcium sources in our study. Is yogurt more protective than calcium from other food sources? Is there something in yogurt other than calcium that may be helpful? We don't know. We didn't study the yogurt, per se, but that's how the media reported it."

And it's not the first time.

Still, reputations live on — even when they're not scientifically documented. Yogurt has been cited by some, including doctors, for helping to prevent and treat canker sores, yeast infections and even rectal itch.

Should you eat yogurt? Probably. It's a great source of protein, riboflavin and calcium, an important nutrient that is lacking in the diets of many — especially women. "Yogurt is so good it gets its own mention on the Food Guide Pyramid that we all should follow," notes Kroger.