Trying to lose weight? Calcium may help

SAN DIEGO, Apr 17 (Reuters Health) -- High-calcium, low-calorie diets help obese mice lose weight at rates double those of mice given low levels of calcium, researchers report. They believe high levels of dietary calcium may suppress hormones that help us 'hold on' to stored fat.

``For any given level of energy balance -- of calorie intake and physical activity -- dietary calcium helps determine whether calories go to storage in the form of fat, or get burned,'' explained lead study author Dr. Michael Zemel, of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The findings were reported at the Experimental Biology 2000 conference held here this week.

Zemel told Reuters Health that he was first tipped off to a potential link between calcium and fat metabolism in studies conducted years ago in obese men. When the men were placed on high-calcium diets ``they lost significant amounts of body fat,'' Zemel said -- even though their calorie intake remained the same.

Studies in mice suggested that low-calcium diets help stimulate hormones that push dietary calcium into fat cells. These hormones also appear to 'switch on' fat-storing and fat-preserving mechanisms within fat cells. High-calcium diets seem to have the opposite effect -- suppressing these weight-gain hormones so that the mice stay thin.

But would high-calcium diets help already obese mice lose weight? In their latest round of research, Zemel's team provided overweight mice with one of five diets. One group of mice stayed on the same high-calorie, low-calcium regimens that made them fat to begin with. The other four groups were placed on 30% reduced-calorie diets with varying levels of calcium intake, either from supplements (calcium carbonate) or dairy (dry skim milk powder).

The result? Animals placed on low-cal, low-calcium diets did lose a little weight -- about 11% of total body weight and 8% of total body fat. But obese mice placed on the high-calcium, low-cal diets ``lost roughly a fifth of their body weight and 42% of their body fat over the next 6 weeks.'' And mice who got their calcium from dairy lost even more -- ``a quarter of their body weight and 60% of their body fat,'' according to Zemel.

Clinical trials are now underway, and results in humans should become available within a year. It's not clear why calcium from dairy might stimulate fat loss any more efficiently than supplemental calcium carbonate, which is the form found in most antacid tablets. But Zemel stressed that any increase in dairy consumption should focus on low-cal products like low-fat yogurts, low-fat cheeses and skim milk. He sets recommended daily levels of consumption at ``3 to 4 servings of low-fat dairy products.'' The study received funding from the National Dairy Council. However, Zemel points out that there are other sources of dietary calcium besides milk and milk-based products. ``Some soy products of course have large amounts of calcium, we have calcium fortified products all over the place, from orange juice to cereals.'' Calcium is also found in produce such as collards, turnip greens, rhubarb, broccoli and kale.

The scientist warns against individuals seeing calcium as a ''magic bullet'' for weight loss. ``It doesn't mean that calories don't count,'' Zemel said. But he believes that high levels of dietary calcium can ``markedly inhibit the machinery for making fat and really rev up the machinery for breaking down fat.''

Report: Pessimism Can Kill

According to a study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, doomsayers are likely to worry themselves into an early grave. Regardless of age or sex, the researchers say, the most pessimistic people tend to die earlier than the most optimistic.

"What is happening in the mind is strongly influencing the body, or the final outcome of the body, which is death," says Dr. Toshihiko Maruta, a psychiatrist who helped compile the report. His team concluded that pessimism itself is a "risk factor" for early death just as is obesity or high cholesterol.

A key point, Dr. Maruta says, may be that having a pessimistic view of life leads people to make bad decisions while optimists tend to make good, beneficial ones. The result is that those who look on the bright side of life are likely to get more out of it, whether at work or school or in sports.

Meditating may be good for the heart

These fatty plaques in the lining of arteries are a major cause of heart attack and stroke. If the study findings are confirmed in larger studies, the results ``have potentially important implications for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis,'' write the researchers.

The meditation program involved more than simply relaxing a couple of times of day, however. Known as Transcendental Meditation, the program is a part of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, a philosophy of medicine based on the idea that stress and disease occur when the various parts of the body are out of alignment with the 'inner intelligence' of the body, according to a report in the March issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In an interview with Reuters Health, the study's lead author, Dr. Amparo Castillo-Richmond, of the College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine in Fairfield, Iowa, said that participants in the meditation program achieve a state of ''restful alertness,'' which appears to help the body to repair itself. She said that several published studies have documented the positive effect of the Transcendental Meditation program on risk factors for heart disease such as hypertension and stress.

The study involved 138 African-American adults with borderline or high blood pressure who were randomly assigned to either the meditation program or an education program about heart disease risk factors. For 6 to 9 months, participants in the meditation group meditated for 20 minutes twice a day, while the education group performed study exercises at home for the same amount of time each day.

To determine the extent of atherosclerosis, Castillo-Richmond and colleagues measured the thickness of the wall of an artery in the neck. A thicker wall signifies more severe disease. Due to limited funding, the researchers were only able to measure artery thickness in 60 participants. However, the investigators did not detect any differences between those who completed the study and those who did not.

In people who meditated, the thickness of the neck artery wall decreased while it increased in those in the health education group. The authors estimate that the decline in thickness in the meditation group indicates about an 11% reduction in the risk of heart attack and a 7.7% to 15% drop in stroke risk.

``The results have potentially important implications for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis and its clinical and epidemiological consequences,'' the researchers conclude.

In the interview, Castillo-Richmond said that she and her colleagues are conducting a second study to confirm the findings in a larger group of people.

SOURCE: Stroke 2000;31:568-573.

It doesn't hurt to be social -- and it's more healthy

``Social relationships may favorably enhance health behaviors,'' write a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. They studied the connection between levels of social activity and behaviors that affect the risk of heart disease, including smoking, exercise, diet, and having a blood pressure and cholesterol check.

Dr. Earl S. Ford and colleagues reviewed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which included over 19,000 adults throughout the United States. In addition to answering questions about their health and lifestyle, respondents answered five questions about their social contacts, such as talking with friends or family, visiting, and participating in organized activities.

According to the report published in Preventive Medicine, the more people were involved in organizational activities, such as church groups or clubs, the less likely they were to smoke cigarettes. In addition, the more active the person in group social activities, the more likely they were to eat adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables, to have their blood pressure and cholesterol checked regularly, and to get exercise, the authors note.

Results for individual social contacts were similar for some things -- people who had more contacts with friends and family were more likely to have their blood pressure and cholesterol checked and to eat adequate amounts of fruits and veggies. But the study also found that those with more individual social contacts were also more likely to smoke, not less.

``Social relationships have a beneficial effect on several behaviors that directly or indirectly affect the risk of cardiovascular disease,'' according to the researchers. They report that these relationships reduce heart risk even after accounting for age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, employment status, and other factors that might influence heart risk.

Ford and colleagues suggest that social contacts may provide individuals with support, reminders, chances to discuss health behaviors, and a set of standards for behavior. The authors note that professionals who plan health promotion activities may want to include aspects of social support in their programs.

These findings, Ford's team concludes are ``especially relevant in light of high levels of physical inactivity and inappropriate dietary habits in the United States.'' They add that even a small reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular disease would make a big impact on the health of the nation.

SOURCE: Preventive Medicine 2000;30:83-92.

Children eat healthier if they sit down to dinner

The findings, from a study of more than 16,000 boys and girls, are published in the March issue of the Archives of Family Medicine.

``It appears as though eating family dinners more often may improve the nutritional quality of adolescence,'' said lead study author Dr. Matthew W. Gillman, of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, Massachusetts, in an interview with Reuters Health.

The study participants who sat down to family dinners also tended to have slightly higher intake of calories but also had a higher intake of fiber and many nutrients, including calcium, folate, vitamins B6, B12, C and E and iron. Overall, 43% of the youngsters ate dinner with their families every day, 40% on most days, and 17% rarely if ever. While about half of 9-year-olds ate dinner with their families, only a third of 14-year-olds did so. The more often a child ate dinner with their family, the healthier their eating patterns appeared to be.

``We can support the efforts of family members to maintain or increase the frequency with which they eat together,'' Gillman said.

His study found no other variables that might have accounted for the differences in diet between youngsters who dined with their families and those who did not.

The researchers speculate that eating dinner together might improve diet overall because family dinners tend to be more healthy than other alternatives. What's more, adults might discuss healthy eating practices during meals, they note.

``Our findings thus suggest that eating family dinner could lead to fewer ready-made dinners, which in turn results in a better-quality diet,'' the researchers write.

Surveys suggest that family dinners have declined in recent decades, possibly due to an increasing number of women in the workplace, as well as the continued role of women as the primary preparers of family dinners. The authors emphasize, however, that healthy family dinners are not impossible for working parents to achieve.

``We want to emphasize that even when women work, family dinners are still possible to a certain extent,'' Gillman told Reuters Health. ``Research shows that working women can have as much of an impact on nutritional quality as those who don't work.''

He noted that close to 90% of the mothers of children in the study worked.

SOURCE: Archives of Family Medicine March 2000.

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