Relationship Between Obesity and Serum Calcium Level in Population of Central India: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Characterized by excess adipose tissue mass and body fat distribution may have a negative impact on health of a people and their wellbeing. . Prevalence of obesity has drastically increased in last three decades which has been found to reduce the life expectancy and overall quality of life. One among six adults all over the world and nearly 2.8 million individuals die every year due to obesity or being overweight according to the WHO. There is a huge burden of cost associated with obesity in health care system due to long term consequences of the disease. Calcium stimulates the activity and expression of fatty acid synthaze which is a key enzyme in novo lipogenesis and inhibits lipolysis in calcium dependent trend. Various important functions such as neuronal activity, muscle contraction, aggregation of platelets, and resistance of insulin, cellular death and hypertension are mediated by intracellular calcium. Thus increase in concentration of intracellular calcium adipose tissues promotes storage of triglycerides in adipocytes by exerting a control of lipogenesis and lipolysis in coordination.
 Material & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at K.M. Medical College and Hospital Matura UP. The study was done on 100 subjects with same number of healthy matched controls. Those patients with pre-existing disease such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, endocrine disorders, renal diseases, smoking, subjects on oral vitamin D or calcium supplementation or family history of obesity or postmenopausal women, pregnant females were excluded from the study.
 Results: It is observed that the serum calcium levels were significantly high in cases i.e. obese subjects compared to non-obese controls. Correlation of serum calcium with BMI was 0.65 while with waist to hip ratio it was found to be 0.51 among cases. In controls the correlation of BMI and serum calcium was observed to be 0.32 whereas it was 0.21 with waist to hip ratio.
 Conclusion: From present study it can be noted that serum calcium is positively correlated with BMI and waist to Hip ratio and are increased in obese people. This supports the assertion that calcium may have a fundamental role in risk of development of obesity and obesity may have an impact on calcium metabolism which leads to hypercalcemia.