Texas Lap Band Surgeons Talk With You

Two scientific studies were published by British doctors in the last 5 years that I find really interesting. 

Everyone wonders why people in Europe and the United States have been steadily gaining weight for the last 40 or so years.  I think that there is some evidence that it’s the way our diets have dramatically changed in the era of pre-prepared and pre-packaged foods.  Despite eating an enormous number of calories, most of us don’t get adequate amounts of many basic nutrients such as calcium, B vitamins, iron and in many cases, protein.  Our diets are filled with starchy, simple carbohydrates that lack vitamins, fiber and minerals.

The two studies that were published in the British Journal of Nutrition both implied that a lack of calcium in overweight people’s diet contributes to putting on more fat and not losing weight.  In the first study, the doctors studied the link between calcium and obesity for several years. They showed that women who ate diets low in calcium had more body fat, bigger waistlines, and higher bad cholesterol levels than those who consumed moderate or large amounts of calcium. A second study showed that the more people reduced their consumption of dairy products over the six-year period examined, the more weight and body fat they gained and the bigger their waistlines grew. In 2007, Angelo Tremblay and his team established a direct link between calcium and a lower cardiovascular risk profile among dieters.

In the study published earlier this year, the doctors realized that dieters who ate an extra 1000mg of calcium per day in the form of supplements lost on average about 10lbs more than those who didn’t over a 15 week period.  One of their theories is that the human brain can detect low levels of calcium in the diet and increases appetite and lowers metabolism to compensate for it. 

Do I think that calcium is a magical cure for obesity?  No, of course not (if it were that simple there would have been 24 coverage of that fact on all the cable news shows).  But I do think that having a widely varied diet, replete with food from all the food groups, is an excellent approach to weight loss.  We’re always bugging our patients to consume at least 40-60g of protein per day, so why not kill two birds with one stone and make some of that protein from dairy sources such as fat-free milk, low-fat cheese, cottage cheese or yoghurt?  Or use the milk/yoghurt to make a yummy smoothie with some fruit (which, by the way, also adds vitamins) instead of drinking your 10,000th SlimFast for breakfast.  If you’re just not a dairy fan, you can always try some unexpected calcium rich sources, like broccoli, salmon, tofu, almonds (in small amounts!), baked beans, white beans and spinach.

You never know – you might lose 5 more lbs between visits than you expected