The Effect of Cow's Milk Versus Calcium Supplement on the Components of Metabolic Syndrome in Overweight or Obese Women

Obesity and metabolic syndrome are serious public health problems. It is suggested that high calcium diet can improve lipid profile, blood pressure and insulin resistance. In this clinical trial, 75 healthy overweight or obese premenopausal women were randomly allocated to one of the following dietary regimens for 8 weeks: 1) a control diet 2) a calcium-supplemented diet containing 800mg/d calcium carbonate 3) a high milk diet containing three servings of low fat milk (all of them providing a 500kcal/day deficit). At baseline and after 8 weeks, waist circumference (WC), blood pressure, serum triglyceride (TG), fasting blood sugar (FBS), and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) were measured. After 8 weeks, WC, FBS and HDL-C decreased in all groups (P<0.001), but there were no significant reduction in TG and blood pressure. Reduction of WC in the milk group was significantly higher than the controls (P=0.028). Also, reduction of HDL-C in the calcium and milk groups was less than the controls (P=0.023 and P=0.019, respectively). Changes in FBS, TG and blood pressure were not significantly different among the 3 groups. We found that increasing milk consumption led to more WC reduction. Milk or calcium intake caused less adverse effect on HDL-C, but has no effect on the blood pressure, FBS and TG. So increase in milk or calcium intake can reduce WC among the metabolic syndrome complications.