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Educate your patients on the importance of 3-A-Day of Dairy: Here's
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tool (PDF: 618k) to show families how to get their 3-A-Day of Dairy
every day for stronger bones.
Developed in conjunction with The American Academy of Family
Physicians, The American Academy of Pediatrics, The American Dietetic
Association, and The National Medical Association.
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Dairy Council Digest Archives
Dairy Foods' Role in Achieving a Healthy Weight
Potential Mechanisms for Calcium's/Dairy Foods’ Role in Weight Management
In vitro studies in cultured human adipocytes and experimental animal (i.e., obese mice model) investigations suggest a plausible mechanism whereby calcium/dairy food intake modulates energy metabolism and obesity risk (13,14,17,18,22,41-44). Low calcium diets have been shown to increase calcium-regulating hormones, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (i.e., the hormonal, active form of vitamin D) and parathyroid hormone (PTH), which in turn increase intracellular calcium concentrations in human adipocytes (14,22). Intracellular calcium plays an important role in regulating both lipogenesis and lipolysis in human adipocytes (13,14,17,22). Increased intracellular calcium stimulates lipogenic gene expression and fatty acid synthase, a key enzyme in de novo lipogenesis (14). Intracellular calcium also inhibits lipolysis, resulting in increased fat storage (14,42). Conversely, a high calcium intake inhibits production of1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, thereby decreasing intracellular calcium and ultimately the fat content of adipocytes (14,22).
As stated in the proceedings of a recent symposium, "increasing the low dairy product and calcium intakes in the United States may greatly contribute to reducing the growing epidemic of obesity and IRS [insulin resistance syndrome]."
The increase in core temperature in experimental animals fed high calcium diets supports calcium’s ability to shift energy metabolism from storage to expenditure (thermogenesis) (14,22,41). Researchers suggest that suppression of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D by dietary calcium permits increased expression of uncoupling protein 2, which facilitates a shift from energy storage to energy utilization (44). No data are available to suggest that calcium increases thermogenesis in humans. Recent support for the hypothesis that high calcium intakes protect against fat mass gain by promoting lipolysis comes from a small cross-sectional study in adult humans (45). Using whole body, indirect calorimetry, researchers showed that high calcium intake promotes fat oxidation over a 24-hour period (45).
Another mechanism whereby dietary calcium intake may reduce body adiposity is by inhibiting fat absorption from the gastrointestinal tract and increasing fecal loss of fatty acids and energy (46). However, this dietary calcium-induced increase in fecal energy loss is insufficient to fully explain the greater weight and fat losses found in some recent experimental animal and human studies of high calcium diets (47).
As discussed above, data from some human and experimental animal studies show that body weight/fat losses are significantly greater when dairy foods are the source of calcium (13,14,22, 37,41). Research is underway to identify additional nutrients or bioactive components in dairy foods that may contribute to this food’s anti-obesity effects (14,17). Preliminary findings indicate that the augmented effect of dairy foods may be due to whey proteins and their bioactive components, which act either independently or synergistically with calcium to favorably affect body weight (14). The high concentration of leucine and other branched chain amino acids in dairy products may contribute to this food’s beneficial effect on body fat/weight by repartitioning dietary energy from adipose tissue to skeletal muscle (14,48). The mechanisms underlying the potential greater loss of visceral fat with high calcium diets are not known.
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