Background: Lack of calcium in­take may exaggerate osteoporosis which is most evident during period of rapid skeletal growth.
Objective : To study effect of high calcium intake mainly from dairy prod­ucts in healthy adolescents females on their body weight, bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral con­tent (BMC).
Subjects and methods : In a com­munity-based, randomized controlled study, 73 females were enrolled whose mean age 11.5 years and sexual maturation aimost at Tanner II. Over a period of 24 months, one group (milk group, n = 44} was supplemented with dairy food prod­ucts to a daily allowance of 1600 mg
calcium and the second group (control group, n = 29) was given the usual diets (daily calcium content 800 mg). Body mass index (BMI), body fat and lean, BMD and BMC using dual-energy x-ray absorptiome-try as well as some serological markers of bone-calcium metabolism were measured at start of study then 6 monthly.
Results : Milk group showed sta­tistically significant increases in BMD and BMC in the last 3 estimates com­pared to control (P = 0.04, 0.02, 0.03 for BMD and 0.04, 0.01, 0.02 for BMC respectively). However, neither the anthropometric measures nor the ser­ological parameters showed any marked difference in the 2 studied groups whether at start or in any sub­sequent estimate.