Dairy and weight loss hypothesis

Abstract

Obesity research has established that the positive energy balance that underlies excess body fat deposition has a multifactorial origin. In practical terms, this implies that beyond the effects of sedentariness and suboptimal macronutrient composition, numerous environmental factors and genotypes have the potential to induce a significant imbalance in the natural matching between energy intake and expenditure. This is potentially the case for variations in calcium intake and/or dairy food, which have been shown to be related to fluctuations in energy balance and the risk of overweight. In a recent clinical trial, Zemel et al.1 contributed to a more specific description of this relationship by demonstrating that calcium as well as dairy supplementation can accentuate body weight loss during dietary restriction in obese individuals characterized by low-to-very-low calcium consumption at baseline. In accordance with the multifactorial nature of obesity, this study indirectly suggests that calcium/dairy supplementation probably does not represent a solution for all obese individuals; rather, it could constitute a part of the solution for some persons, particularly low-level calcium consumers. Clearly, this message was not considered in a paper published recently by Lanou and Barnard.2 The authors reported a survey of the literature that was …