09/08/2014 (Tehran Times) - The health minister on Monday confirmed a report that there is palm oil in high fat milk and asked citizens to avoid full fat dairy products.

“Unfortunately, this issue is true and we have presented this report to the president,” Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi told reporters.

According to Dr. Majid Haji Faraji, director of the Iranian National Nutrition and Food Industry Research Institute, the fat content in dairy products in Iran is not from milk itself but from palm oil added to them.

Dr. Haji Faraji said in recent years, due to imposed sanctions on Iran, milk product producers have turned to palm oil to add the excess fat to their full fat dairy products.

The problem is that hydrogenated vegetable oils like palm oil contain saturated fatty acid, a trans fats that could lead to increase of cholesterol build up in arteries and eventually to heart attack, Haji Faraji explained.

In his interview with the Hamshahri online, Haji Faraji said out of every three men in Iran, one suffers from osteoporosis, a disease in which the density and quality of bone are reduced.

He added that half of Iranian women are also grappling with the same ailment. 

“Around 80 percent of school-aged children are not receiving enough calcium daily and since the cost of milk products has spiked in recent months many more people cannot afford buying dairy products, meaning in the near future we will witness more osteoporosis disease among people age 30 and above,” Haji Faraji mentioned.