Don’t Count on the Calcium—Just Yet
Chances are you have seen the yogurt ads promising that three servings a day will help you squeeze into an “itsy bitsy, teenie weenie, yellow polka dot bikini.” If not, maybe you have heard the news that a researcher from the University of Tennesee, Michael Zemel, has patented the idea that dairy products promote weight loss. Or maybe you’ve heard that the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a provegan medical group,is petitioning the federal government, saying the claims that dairy consumption promotes weight loss are false and misleading.
What, then, does this mean to you as a weight-conscious vegetarian athlete? Right now it simply means don’t count on the calcium, or maybe I should say milk.Indeed, evidence is emerging of a link between dairy consumption and weight loss if you are fairly overweight or obese. Several recent clinical trials have found that consuming three or more dairy products markedly accelerates weight and body fat loss during caloric restriction.
In one study of 34 otherwise healthy obese adults, those who consumed three servings of light yogurt (for a total of 1,100 mg of calcium) daily lost 22 percent more weight and 61 percent more body fat than those on a similarly restricted low-dairy (500 mg of calcium) diet.Take caution, however, because the majority of evidence linking increased dairy and weight loss comes from animal or observational studies and is not noted in all investigations.How calcium might affect weight loss is a good question. The theory is that a high-calcium diet—1,200 milligrams per day—inhibits the production of calcitriol, a hormone that tells cells to generate more fat.
Conversely, on a low-calcium diet more calcitriol is released resulting in bigger, plumper fat cells. But supplements alone won’t suffice. According to Zemel, you need to consume dairy foods because bioactive compounds in milk, yogurt, and cheese supposedly work with calcium to nearly double the effectiveness of fat burning and weight loss. Research studies, however, have never compared the weight loss effects of plant sources of calcium to dairy calcium and also have not looked at athletes who need to trim just a little weight. Stay tuned, I am sure there is more on the horizon.