Background: High dietary calcium (Ca) is reported to have anti-obesity and anti-inflammatory properties. Evidence\r\nfor these properties of dietary Ca in animal models of polygenic obesity have been confounded by the inclusion of\r\ndairy food components in experimental diets; thus, effect of Ca per se could not be deciphered. Furthermore,\r\npotential anti-inflammatory actions of Ca in vivo could not be dissociated from reduced adiposity.\r\nMethods: We characterized adiposity along with metabolic and inflammatory phenotypes in diet-induced obese\r\n(DIO) mice fed 1 of 3 high fat diets (45% energy) for 12 wk: control (n = 29), high-Ca (n = 30), or high-Ca + nonfat\r\ndry milk (NFDM) (n = 30).\r\nResults: Mice fed high-Ca + NFDM had reduced body weight and adiposity compared to high-Ca mice (P <\r\n0.001). Surprisingly, the high-Ca mice had increased adiposity compared to lower-Ca controls (P < 0.001).\r\nHyperphagia and increased feed efficiency contributed to obesity development in high-Ca mice, in contrast to\r\nNFDM mice that displayed significantly reduced weight gain despite higher energy intake compared to controls\r\n(P < 0.001). mRNA markers of macrophages (e.g., CD68, CD11d) strongly correlated with body weight in all diet\r\ntreatment groups, and most treatment differences in WAT inflammatory factor mRNA abundances were lost when\r\ncontrolling for body weight gain as a covariate.\r\nConclusions: The results indicate that high dietary Ca is not sufficient to dampen obesity-related phenotypes in\r\nDIO mice, and in fact exacerbates weight gain and hyperphagia. The data further suggest that putative anti-obesity\r\nproperties of dairy emanate from food components beyond Ca.
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