The study no one was crying out for

File this one under “Study no one was crying out for.”

The headline of a NutraIngredients.com report that covered the study was very intriguing: “Dairy Calcium Has ‘No Effect’ On Weight.”

Inasmuch as calcium intake has been recognized in helping weight loss diets, a finding like this would be very important.

Here’s how it went: Researchers at Purdue University recruited 155 women who were randomly assigned to three groups to follow three different diets for one year. One group continued their normal diets in which less than 800 mg of dietary calcium were consumed per day; the second group – a “medium dairy” group – consumed dairy products for a daily intake of about 1,000 mg of calcium; and the third group – “high dairy” – received a daily intake of about 1,350 mg of calcium.

The results: There were no significant changes in body weight or fat mass in any of the three groups over the course of the year.

The study was led by Dorothy Teegarden, M.D., who told NutraIngredients.com that the results were “not surprising.”

Not surprising? In study after study we’ve seen how calcium intake may improve the effectiveness of weight-loss diets for overweight and obese people. So how could these Purdue results be not surprising? Simple: All of the subjects were young, active and had normal body weight.

Hmm. Okay. So dairy intake causes neither weight gain nor loss for that very specific group of people: young, active females who have normal body weight. In which case the NutraIngredients.com headline “Dairy Calcium Has ‘No Effect’ On Weight” would be, for most of us, wildly off the mark.

It’s almost as if NutraIngredients.com knows my pet peeve about misleading headlines and decided to punch my buttons.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to read about studies that demonstrate the usefulness of calcium for those who are trying to lose weight, you can check the e-Alert “A Date With Density” (1/21/04), which can be found in the e-Alert archives on our web site at hsionline.com.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute

Sources:

“Dairy Products Do Not Lead To Alterations in Body Weight or Fat Mass in Young Women in a 1-Y Intervention” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 81, No. 4, April 2005, ajcn.org

“Dairy Calcium Has ‘No Effect’ on Weight” NutraIngredients.com, 4/18/05, nutraingredients.com