A recent study at Ohio State University seems to stomp on one of the recent dietary supplement approaches to weight loss. As per usual, the study focused on 12 weeks of weight loss which is the research standard for study length. The study found that all participants lost weight on a 500 calorie diet but there was no difference in loss whether dairy or supplement calcium was included. The story is here. Even the researchers aren’t happy since there’s still controversy in the medical literature as to whether calcium enhances weight loss. They are now focusing on markers of bone loss and related chemistry to try and pin down a mechanism.

The study has some shortcomings:

•  500 calories, that’s not much. Do more modest calorie cutbacks benefit from calicum?
• exercise + calcium? Does weight loss accelerate if calcium is added to diet + exercise rather than just diet alone?

Regardless, calcium still remains an important dietary supplement particularly for mature women who need to worry about the risk of osteoporosis.

Sirtis Pharmaceuticals is running trials on a compound that’s derived from resveratrol. That’s the magic mojo that makes red wine so enticing as a “tonic” and is largely thought to be responsible for the French paradox. It’s available in many other foods but at very low concentrations. It still makes a great excuse to eat more berries and peanuts. The lead article is pretty light on detail but since you can buy resveratrol at the health food store today, you can supplement now. There is some debate in the nutritional community whether your supplement needs to contain quercitin as well to make the resveratrol useful to the body so keep that in mind if you head out shopping. Me, I still like red wine but the tabletized form gets you far more resveratrol than even the most unhealthy quantities of vino can. Cheers.

I have been fiddling with the backend stuff on this site for a while but the intent isn’t a tinkering hobby site. Instead, it is my strong intention to make this site my professional website for information on health, anti-aging medicine and medicine advances and related topics. There’s enough news that I read in a given day as well as topics to address that I should be able to update things regularly.