The relationship between dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D and metabolic syndrome and its components

Past studies have shown that dairy intake have an inverse association with metabolic syndrome. Although the underlying mechanism is not completely clear, it seems that vitamin D and calcium are two main factors responsible for this positive association.The aim of this study was to determine the association between dietary calcium intake and vitamin D and metabolic syndrome and its components. In this cross sectional study, 973 individuals (237 males and 736 females) from the residents of Khorramabad were selected using randomized multi-stage cluster sampling method. Dietary intakes of people, by use of a food frequency questionnaire (201 items), were evaluated and using Nutritionist 4 software were analyzed. Venous blood samples were collected to measure the metabolic variables and blood pressure were measured. Metabolic syndrome according to American Heart Association (AHA) criteria was defined. The findings showed that there is a significant relationship between marital status and metabolic syndrome (p=0.001). Also there is a significant relationship between education and risk of metabolic syndrome (p=0.001).There was a significant inverse correlation between vitamin D and increased TG, FBS and SBP, (p=0.018, p=0.04, p=0.026 respectively) but there was no relationship between calcium and metabolic syndrome components. There was no significant association between vitamin D dietary and metabolic syndrome, although between vitamin D intake and the risk of high levels of FBS, TG and SBP inverse relationship were shown, although there is no significant relationship between calcium intake and metabolic syndrome.