Does Dairy Calcium Intake Enhance Weight Loss Among Overweight Diabetic Patients?

Abstract

OBJECTIVE -To examine the effect of dairy calcium consumption on weight loss and improvement in cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes indicators among overweight diabetic patients.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS -This was an ancillary study of a 6-month randomized clinical trial assessing the effect of three isocaloric diets in type 2 diabetic patients: 1) mixed glycemic index carbohydrate diet, 2) low-glycemic index diet, and 3) modified Mediterranean diet. Low-fat dairy product consumption varied within and across the groups by personal choice. Dietary intake, weight, CVD risk factors, and diabetes indexes were measured at baseline and at 6 months.RESULTS -A total of 259 diabetic patients were recruited with an average BMI Ͼ31 kg/m 2 and mean age of 55 years. No difference was found at baseline between the intervention groups in CVD risk factors, diabetes indicators, macronutrient intake, and nutrient intake from dairy products. Dairy calcium intake was associated with percentage of weight loss. Among the high tertile of dairy calcium intake, the odds ratio for weight loss of Ͼ8% was 2.4, P ϭ 0.04, compared with the first tertile, after controlling for nondairy calcium intake, diet type, and the change in energy intake from baseline. No association was noted between dairy calcium and other health indexes except for triglyceride levels.CONCLUSIONS -A diet rich in dairy calcium intake enhances weight reduction in type 2 diabetic patients. Such a diet could be tried in diabetic patients, especially those with difficulty adhering to other weight reduction diets. Diabetes Care 30:485-489, 2007R ecent studies suggest that calcium metabolism and perhaps other components of dairy products may contribute to weight reduction in animal and human models (1,2). In addition, an accumulating body of evidence suggests that calcium-rich diets play a direct role in the prevention of obesity (2-5). Zemel et al. (4) analyzed data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Study III and demonstrated that the odds of being in the highest quartile of adiposity are negatively associated with calcium and dairy product intake. These findings have been confirmed in other settings as well (6,7). Other studies (8 -10), however, did not find significant effects of dairy consumption on body weight and body composition.Dairy consumption is an emerging factor that might affect insulin resistance syndrome (IRS). Prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes have increased concomitantly with the decrease in milk intake over the past three decades (11-13). In a cross-sectional study conducted by Mennen et al. (14), an inverse association between dairy intake and IRS was observed in men. More recently, analysis of the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study by Pereira et al. (15) showed that increased dairy consumption has a strong inverse association with IRS among overweight adults and may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. In another longitudinal study (16), low-fat dairy intake was associated with lower incidence of type 2 di...

An Adequate Calcium Intake Could Help Achieve Weight Loss in Overweight/Obese Women following Hypocaloric Diets

“…This greater increase in dairy products and calcium intake favored weight loss among the LC women ( table 4 ). Similar observations have been reported by other authors [13,31,[33][34][35][36][37][38]42] .…”

“…As reported by Novotny et al [37] and Shahar et al [38] , the BMI at the end of the study also correlated negatively with total calcium intake and the intake of calcium from dairy sources, but not with calcium from other sources. Calcium may therefore require other components found in milk for its weight controlling activity to become patent.…”

A modified Mediterranean diet is associated with the greatest reduction in alanine aminotransferase levels in obese type 2 diabetes patients: results of a quasi-randomised controlled trial

“…The trial design and methods have been presented in detail elsewhere [7]. Briefly, 259 eligible type 2 diabetes patients were recruited between March 2003 and April 2004 from ten urban primary care clinics, using the electronic database of the central region of the largest health maintenance organisation in Israel (Clalit Health Services).…”

Milk intelligence: Mining milk for bioactive substances associated with human health

“…Likewise, dairy calcium intake over 18 months by young female subjects resulted in reduced fat mass accumulation, although the effect was small (Eagan, Lyle, Gunther, Peacock, & Teegarden, 2006). Moreover, a diet rich in dairy calcium was also shown to enhance weight loss in type-2 diabetic patients (Shahar, Abel, Elhayany, Vardi, & Fraser, 2007).…”