Author
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Roughead, Zamzam |
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Hunt, Janet |
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Submitted to: Journal of Nutrition
Publication Type: Other Publication Acceptance Date: 7/11/2003 Publication Date: 10/1/2003 Citation: Roughead, Z.K., Hunt, J.R. 2003. Letter to Editor. Reply to Sebastian and Remer and Manz. Journal of Nutrition. 133:3240. Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: A letter to the editor was submitted in reply to two letters written to the editor of Journal of Nutrition regarding a recent publication (Roughead, Z.K., et al., Controlled high meat diets do not affect calcium retention or indices of bone status in healthy postmenopausal women. J Nutr, 2003. 133(4): p. 1020-6) which described a controlled feeding study which carefully compared calcium retention from high versus low meat diets in healthy postmenopausal women. No differences in calcium retention or any of the biomarkers of bone health were found. The authors of the letters questioned whether or not the potential renal acid load of the two diets, and thus the resulting net renal acid excretion, were sufficiently different to produce differences in calcium excretion. They also suggested that fruits and vegetables, rather than grains should have been used as substitutes for meat in the low meat diet in order to maximize the difference in potential renal acid load. In our reply we asserted that our objective was to perform a practical test of the effects of high and low meat diets on calcium homeostasis and that the experimental diets reflect typical low and high meat diets in which cereal and grains are commonly substituted for meat rather than fruits and vegetables. The findings of this study are of important practical significance as they refute the long-held belief that meat consumption adversely affects calcium homeostasis and thus bone health. |
