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ARS Home » Plains Area » Grand Forks, North Dakota » Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center » Dietary Prevention of Obesity-related Disease Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #390191
Research Project: Modification of Diurnal Patterns to Promote Health in Models for Human Metabolic Dysfunction

Location: Dietary Prevention of Obesity-related Disease Research

Title: Calcium consumption is beneficial to bone health in obese, postmenopausal women

Author
item Cao, Jay

Submitted to: Journal of Nutrition
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/4/2022
Publication Date: 2/16/2022
Citation: Cao, J.J. 2022. Calcium consumption is beneficial to bone health in obese, postmenopausal women. Journal of Nutrition. 152:922-923. https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxac008.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxac008

Interpretive Summary: Obesity and osteoporosis are two major public health problems in the United States and both disorders have many common environmental and genetic features. Accumulating evidence indicates that obesity is a negative determinant of bone mass and fracture risk after the effects of body weight and/or body mass index are taken into consideration. Calcium is an essential nutrient for bone health. Emerging data suggest calcium supplementation including the time of day of calcium intake should be explored for improving bone health in obese, postmenopausal women.

Technical Abstract: Obesity and osteoporosis are two major public health problems growing in prevalence worldwide, and these two disorders share many common environmental and genetic features. Despite being a risk factor for many chronic health disorders in humans, obesity previously has been considered beneficial to bone health. However, studies showing positive, no, or negative correlations between obesity and bone mass or fracture risk have been reported. Recent studies indicate that obesity does not impair the effects of calcium supplementation on acute circulating C-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type 1 collagen (CTX). Circulating CTX exhibits a diurnal pattern or circadian rhythm with the concentration being the greatest in the early morning and the lowest in the early afternoon. The findings that calcium from milk or calcium carbonate resulted a continued CTX suppression 5 hours after calcium intake independent of visceral fat content suggest that consuming a calcium supplement at night may be one approach to reduce morning peak blood CTX in postmenopausal women. Taken together, the findings suggest that calcium supplementation strategies, including optimizing the time of day of calcium intake, should be explored for improving bone health in obese, postmenopausal women.