Boosting calcium consumption spurs weight loss, according to a study published in the most recent issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, but only in people whose diets are calcium deficient.
Angelo Tremblay and his team at Universite Laval's Faculty of Medicine in France made the discovery in a 15-week weight loss program they conducted on obese women. The participants consumed on average less than 600 mg of calcium per day, whereas recommended daily intake is 1000 mg. In addition to following a low calorie diet, the women were instructed to take two tablets a day containing either a total of 1200 mg of calcium or a placebo. Those who took the calcium tablets lost nearly 13 pounds over the course of the program compared to only about 2 pounds for women in the control group.
One hypothesis for the calcium-weight loss connection is that the brain can detect the lack of calcium and seeks to compensate by spurring food intake, which obviously works against the goals of any weight loss program. Sufficient calcium intake seems to stifle the desire to eat more and is therefore important to ensuring the success of any diet. According to the investigators, over 50 percent of obese women who come to their clinic don’t eat enough calcium to meet the recommended daily requirements.
The French team has studied the link between calcium and obesity for several years. Their first findings, published in 2003, revealed that women who ate calcium-poor diets had more body fat, bigger waistlines, and higher bad cholesterol levels than those who consumed moderate or large amounts of calcium. A second study showed that the more people avoided eating dairy products over the six-year period examined, the more weight and body fat they gained and the bigger their waistlines grew. In 2007, they established a direct link between calcium and a lower cardiovascular risk profile among dieters.
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