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

Background: 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. Methods: 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. Results: 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. Conclusion: 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.