CALCIUM INTAKE AND WEIGHT LOSS
by JJ Virgin, CNS, CHFI
One of the trainers from Dr. Phil’s Weight Loss Challenge recently contacted me for more information regarding the current research on calcium intake and weight loss. If you are interested at www.pubmed.com there is an excellent study by Michael Zemel: “Regulation of adiposity by dietary calcium”:June 2000.
For those of you who are not as enthralled with reviewing scientific literature I am going to summarize it in layman’s terms below. I then am adding a “take-away” which is what this means to you and what you should do about it, so if you are really not into science you can skip directly to that!
THE SUMMARY:
Increasing dietary calcium in obese patients for one year resulted in a 4.9 kg loss of body fat. Dietary calcium appears to modulate the efficiency of energy utilization-low calcium diets favor increased energy storage (i.e. you store more calories as fat) and high calcium diets reduce energy efficiency and favor increased energy thermogenesis ( i.e. you burn more calories and have a better basal metabolic rate). In the study, the rats fed the higher Calcium diets had a higher core temp confirming this rise in basal metabolic rate. The major obesity study, NHANES III found these same results-that the participants with the highest intake of calcium had the lowest percentage of risk of obesity.
The suggested science behind this is that low Calcium diets stimulate the increase in a hormone called calcitrol which increases intracellular storage of Calcium in fat cells which in term decreases lipolysis (the use of fat for energy). Conversely, high Calcium diets lower calcitrol release and increase lipolysis.
THE TAKE AWAY:
You should strive to get your primary calcium intake from your diet and then supplement to get it up to ideal amounts. Calcium is a mineral which means is it a rock, so the form you get it in can significantly impact the amount you can actually absorb - this can vary from 5-40% in absorption. You don’t have to overload with supplemental calcium though, since you will be getting a good amount in your diet - you will need 500-1000 mg a day as a supplemental amount.
The other thing that you should do is to include fruits, vegetables and green drinks with your dairy servings, as these are alkalinizing and reduce the acid load from the dairy. When your body is hit with an acid load it has to draw calcium from the bones to buffer the Ph back up to normal. You will see that in all of the meals and snacks I have designed I have you eating low fat sources of dairy like yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, goat cheese and string cheese combined with fruit or veggies for that reason.
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