Calcium and D may help burn fat

Overweight women who take supplements of calcium and vitamin D may be able to lose more body fat, but only if they weren’t getting much calcium before. Researchers writing in the British Journal of Nutrition gave 63 overweight women a calcium and D supplement and tracked them for 15 weeks while they followed a low-calorie diet. In the study group as a whole, the supplement didn’t help people lose more body fat, but women who started with low levels of calcium seemed to lose more weight and fat. When watched eating at a buffet, those women also ate less fat than they did during a meal at the beginning of the study. Women with low calcium levels at the beginning of the study who got the supplements lost an average of 13 pounds, compared to 3 pounds for those on placebos.