Environmental elements related to diet and activity may be large factors in the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in the United States.
Recently, studies seeking an explanation for this growing trend have identified that dietary calcium intake is negatively correlated with body mass index.
For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Nationwide Food Consumption Survey, conducted from 1987 to 1988, found that the average dietary calcium intake in the United States was far below the suggested optimal calcium intake (1000 mg per day for adults and 1200 mg per day for children and young adults aged 11 to 24 years) and those with the lowest calcium intakes tended to have the highest body weights.
Researchers say that calcium intake could explain as much as three percent of the variability in adult body weight and may be associated with changes in body weight of about one pound per year.
Moreover, several other recent studies suggest that consuming dairy-containing foods may have even greater effects on body weight, beyond calcium content.
A recently published study found that with each daily consumption of a dairy-containing food, risk of obesity, abnormal glucose homeostasis, and elevated blood pressure decreased by 20 percent, and the odds of developing the insulin-resistance syndrome were lower by 21 percent.
Another study found similar results when examining the effects of supplemental calcium and dairy products on weight loss in 32 obese adults. The high-dairy group (total calcium intake of 1200 to 1300 mg per day) had the highest level of weight loss, 70 percent, compared with 26 percent in the high-calcium group (400 to 500 mg calcium per day supplemented with 800 mg elemental calcium per day).
Further, those who consumed the high-calcium diet and the high-dairy diet showed a significantly greater fat loss in the trunk area than did those who consumed the low-calcium diet.
These findings were further confirmed by another study of overweight women, which found that women with the greatest intake in dietary calcium (primarily in the form of dairy products) had significantly greater weight losses than did those with lower calcium (dairy) intakes.
The reasons why dairy products seem to have greater effects than calcium supplementation remain unclear, however researchers say that dairy products may contain components unrelated to calcium that affect body weight.
Although studies to date have been small, the available data supports the conclusion that dietary calcium may play a role in regulating body weight; and increasing dietary calcium or dairy intake may help to curb future weight gain.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition February 2003, 77 (2): 281
I was interested in this article when I first reviewed it as I have received many unsolicited, anecdotal e-mails from people who lose weight while taking calcium. Most of these people achieved their weight loss by using supplements. In those individuals, I suspect they were "protein" types according to the Metabolic Typing system and the calcium helped to balance their biophysiology.
Interestingly, I posted an article on the association between calcium and weight lossnearly three years ago from an experimental conference. That is one of the advantages of reading the newsletter; you will frequently be apprised of health breakthroughs months or years before they are published in the medical journals.
However, as the article states, dairy seems to provide an even more profound effect than simple calcium pills. This is no surprise to me as it is exactly what can be expected from using whole food supplements.
The article, however, does not make the important distinction between commercial milk, which is pasteurized, and unpasteurized (raw) milk. Raw milk is a completely different food than commercial milk. Just as raw eggs are far superior to cooked eggs, raw milk is superior to pasteurized milk, which has lost much of its healing potential.
Late last year I was finally able to secure some raw cream from an Amish dairy farmer, and the raw cream has profoundly improved my health.
Sally Fallon has compiled a Web site that provides further information about this important food source, including where you can purchase raw milk. Here is an example from her site:
Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12, and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.
Calves fed pasteurized milk die before maturity. Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk turns putrid and processors must remove slime and pus from pasteurized milk by a process of centrifugal clarification. Inspection of dairy herds for disease is not required for pasteurized milk.
The practice of heating milk to kill germs was instituted in the 20s to combat TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by poor animal nutrition and dirty production methods. But times have changed and modern stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated trucks and inspection methods make pasteurization absolutely unnecessary for public protection.
The remainder of this comment was contributed by William Wolcott, Founder, The Healthexcel System of Metabolic Typing Author, The Metabolic Typing Diet (Doubleday).
Knowing what we do about Metabolic Typing (MT) and macronutrient ratios and their impact on energy production from food versus fat storage from food, I question whether the comments on dairy are necessarily specifically related to calcium. It is possible that, in some instances, the dairy balances out the macronutrient ratio. Additionally, fatty acid CLA could be involved in the weight loss.
That being said, if there truly is a link between calcium and weight loss, it almost assuredly involves the result of correction of autonomic, oxidative and catabolic/anabolic functional homeostatic imbalances.
In the autonomic system, calcium specifically increases sympathetic output thereby increasing metabolic rate. Overall these days, there are more parasympathetic dominants than sympathetics and the paras tend to have more problems with obesity.
In the oxidative system, calcium is the primary nutrient that balances body chemistry in fast oxidizers.
In anabolic/catabolic, calcium increases catabolic processes. Obesity is often seen in an anabolic imbalance.
The form of calcium is also very important. Certain forms tend to exacerbate imbalances while other forms alleviate each of the imbalances noted above.
Further, calcium would contribute to weight gain somewhat in mixed oxidizers and predominantly in slow oxidizers.
Related Articles:
Calcium May Help Those Trying To Lose Weight