Effects of Dietary Calcium on Body Weight, Carcass Fat Content and Adipocyte Size in Male Rats

Introduction & Objective: Calcium is a micronutrient and now receiving much attention for its doubtful effects on weight and body fatness. A few mechanisms has been suggested for calcium effects on body fatness and the most emphasized one is the reducing of lipolysis and increasing lipogenesis via reducing parathyroid hormone levels. The present study is designed to evaluate the effects of nondairy dietary calcium on adipogenesis and adipocyte size in male Sprague dawley rats. Materials & Methods: This experimental study was done from November to September of 2005 at Tehran school of health, nutrition department. 48 male Spragu-Dawley rats from Damgostar Company were used in three randomly selected groups. The rats were fed low (0.2% W/W), usual (0.5% W/W) and high (1.2% W/W) dietary calcium based on AIN-93M purified diet. Rats were housed in 12 hours light-dark cycle, 22-25°C room temperature with free access to their respective diets. At the end of the experiment, rats were decapitated and carcass fat content, carcass ash content and mean adipocyte size in testis, peritoneal and subcutaneous fat pads were compared in three groups. The SPSS 11.5 was used as statistical software, running analysis of variance for comparing the effects. Results: weight gain, carcass fat content and adipocyte size, in groups were not significantly different, while serum parathyroid hormone concentrations in high calcium group was significantly lower than low calcium group (p