Elsevier

The Journal of Pediatrics

Volume 157, Issue 3, September 2010, Pages 473-478
The Journal of Pediatrics

Original Article
Associations among Calcium Intake, Resting Energy Expenditure, and Body Fat in a Multiethnic Sample of Children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2010.02.065Get rights and content

Objective

The objective was to determine if calcium intake was associated with resting energy expenditure (REE) and body fat in children after accounting for ancestral genetic background.

Study design

Participants included 315 children. REE, body composition, and dietary calcium were assessed by indirect calorimetry, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, and 24-hour recalls, respectively. Structural equations modeling assessed the relationships among REE, calcium intake, and body fat.

Results

There were positive associations between calcium intake and REE (P < .01) and between REE and total body fat (P < .0001). There was indirect effect of calcium intake on total body fat (P < .01). There were positive associations between calcium intake and REE (P < .01), and a trend toward an association of calcium intake and total body fat (P = .065) among boys only, whereas the only significant relationship among girls was an association of REE on total body fat (P < .0001).

Conclusions

REE was associated with calcium intake and mediated a relationship between calcium intake and total body fat. These findings suggest calcium intake may play a role in fat accumulation and energy balance through its effects on REE, especially in boys.

Section snippets

Methods

A sample (n = 315; 53% male) of European American (n =122), African American (n = 107) and Hispanic American (n = 86) children, 7 to 12 years of age, were recruited. The children were pubertal stage ≤3 as assessed by a pediatrician (according to Marshall and Tanner),21 healthy, and not taking medications known to affect body composition. Parents and children provided consent/assent, respectively, after receiving the protocol by study personnel. The protocol was approved by the Institutional

Results

The Table represents participant characteristics for the total sample and stratified by sex. Boys were significantly older than girls (P < .05), had higher total lean mass, and had higher REE (P < .01), whereas girls tended to have higher total fat mass (P = .0678). However, there was no difference in BMI percentile between the sexes. Males had higher energy intake than girls (P < .05) but there was no sex difference in calcium intake.

Figure 1 illustrates the overall relationships between

Discussion

The relationships observed herein contribute insight into the inconsistencies reported by other studies investigating the relationships among dietary calcium, REE, and body fat. Consistent with our results, a randomized, controlled crossover study of 9- to 10-year-old children reported that milk consumption induced greater REE and thermic effect of food after 6 days of supplementation relative to supplementation with a sugar-only beverage.10 Conversely, in a study evaluating calcium intake and

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  • Cited by (0)

    Supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants R01-DK067426, M01-RR-00032, P30-DK-56336, CA-47888, M01-RR-00032 P60-DK-079626. A.W. and M.C. were supported by the National Cancer Institute Cancer Prevention and Control Training Program (NIH CA-47888). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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