Abstract
Growing evidence has suggested a possible relationship between dietary calcium intake and metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk. However, the findings of these observational studies are inconclusive, and the dose-response association between calcium intake and risk of MetS remains to be determined. Here, we identified relevant studies by searching PubMed and Web of Science databases up to December 2018, and selected observational studies reporting relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) for MetS based on calcium intake and estimated the summary RRs using random-effects models. Eight cross-sectional and two prospective cohort studies totaling 63,017 participants with 14,906 MetS cases were identified. A significantly reduced risk of MetS was associated with the highest levels of dietary calcium intake (RR: 0.89; 95% CI: 0.80–0.99; I2 = 75.3%), with stronger association and less heterogeneity among women (RR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.66–0.83; I2 = 0.0%) than among men (RR: 1.06, 95% CI: 0.82–1.37; I2 = 72.6%). Our dose-response analysis revealed that for each 300 mg/day increase in calcium intake, the risk of MetS decreased by 7% (RR: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.87–0.99; I2 = 77.7%). In conclusion, our findings suggest that dietary calcium intake may be inversely associated with the risk of MetS. These findings may have important public health implications with respect to preventing the disease. Further studies, in particular longitudinal cohort studies and randomized clinical trials, will be necessary to determine whether calcium supplementation is effective to prevent MetS.
Highlights
Calcium, an essential element, is the most abundant ion in human body
Five of the studies were performed in Korea[10,11,12,15,16], two studies were conducted in United States[13,18], and the others were performed in Saudi Arab[9], France[17], and Australia[14], respectively
This systemic meta-analysis indicated that calcium intake may have a putative protective effect against metabolic syndrome (MetS), which was the most up-to-date epidemiological evidence
Summary
An essential element, is the most abundant ion in human body. It is mainly stored in bones in the form of hydroxyapatite[5]. Previous evidence from meta-analysis indicated that calcium may reduce the risk of CVD and some types of cancer[7,8]. In the recent dozen years, a growing body of epidemiological studies evaluated the association between dietary calcium intake and the risk of MetS. There is no meta-analysis has been performed before to study the putative association between dietary calcium intake and the risk of MetS. We conducted the current systematic review and meta-analysis in order to quantify the dose-response relationship between dietary calcium intake and MetS risk
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