As well as the fat - could there be an argument for including lots of cheese/milk/dairy or other calcium rich foods in your diet?
Calcium
A lack of calcium has often been attributed to PCOS. In fact, future research suggests that calcium may soon form part of a treatment for PCOSers.
Calcium is involved in egg production in the ovaries. Calcium is also important to weight loss.
Calcium may become a dieter’s best friend
The Tennessee team used mice that model human patterns of
obesity. The animals had been genetically engineered to express in
their fat cells a gene called agouti, which normally operates in
human but not mouse fat cells. This gene strongly influences
whether a fat cell burns energy-containing molecules or converts
them to fat.
Michael B. Zemel, who directs the university’s Nutrition Institute,
and his colleagues put these mice onto a low-calorie diet for 6
weeks. Their meals contained just 70 percent as much energy as
the rodents would normally choose to eat. One group received a
diet that was also deficient in calcium. Its calcium content,
adjusting for species differences, is "almost exactly what American
women are consuming," Zemel notes, "about 500 milligrams per
day." That’s well below the recommended daily allowance of 1,300
mg calcium.
The calorie-restricted mice lost 8 percent of their body fat and 11
percent of their weight.
Zemel’s group again restricted the food but boosted calcium intake
of another two groups of the mice.
Each received the mouse
equivalent of a human dose of 1,600 mg calcium per day. Mice
getting this as a carbonate supplement lost 42 percent of their
body fat and 19 percent of their weight. Those that consumed the
extra calcium as nonfat dry milk—substituted for an equal amount
of dietary protein—lost 60 percent of their body fat and 25 percent
of their weight.
A fourth group, receiving twice as much dairy-derived calcium,
showed little extra benefit, Zemel notes.
These differences occurred even though all of the low-calorie
groups got the same exercise and mix of dietary fat, protein, and
carbohydrates. The results show that varying dietary calcium alters
the animals’ metabolism, says Zemel. Among the dieting animals,
core body temperature a measure of basal energy use fell
during the low-calcium diet but climbed with the high-calcium
chow.
Under low-calcium conditions, the Tennessee scientists find, the
agouti gene directs calcium channels to open. "That turns out to
be a bad thing," Zemel says, because it activates fat synthesis
while suppressing fat breakdown.
Zemel’s group is now testing whether a 6-month augmentation of
dietary calcium will offer similar weight-loss benefits to obese
women.
When endocrinologist Robert P. Heaney of Creighton University in
Omaha, Neb., first learned of preliminary data by Zemel’s group
last year, "I thought they made sense but I still had a degree of
skepticism," he says. So, he reanalyzed data from five calciumsupplement
trials he had conducted in people over the years.
"And in all five," he says, "we found a significant weight effect that
we had ignored." These data, to be published soon, show that
women consuming the least calcium weighed the most.
Ironically, Zemel says, among weight-conscious teens, "the first
thing they jettison from their diet is dairy." This choice, he
suspects, is "moving them farther from their goal, not closer."
CAN DAIRY REDUCE BLOOD PRESSURE?
Meanwhile, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has shown that drinking skimmed milk can half the risk of high blood pressure. Spanish researchers followed the diets of 6,000 people for two years and discovered that those who drank skimmed milk and ate other low-fat dairy products were 50% less likely to suffer from high blood pressure than those who consumed little or no skimmed milk or dairy products.
Organisation Puts "Dairy for Weight Loss" to the Test!
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Three people put milk to the test.
The dairy industry is touting studies that suggest including three daily servings of low-fat milk, yogurt or cheese in your diet may not only help you lose weight but also help you target and burn belly fat, which has been shown to increase the risk for diabetes and heart disease.
WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh put the "milk diet" to the test by recruiting three station employees to drink 24 ounces of milk daily. Melissa Seegert said she has tried just about any fad diet that comes in a pill. She's also tried the Atkins diet and the South Beach diet.
Heather Emmons, who already exercises and tries to eat right, wanted to lose a few extra pounds for an upcoming wedding.
Jason Minor weighed in at 260 pounds with a 48-inch waist. Minor tried the 1,600-calorie meal plan provided in the diet and added three glasses of low-fat chocolate milk.
Seegert went on a 1,500-calorie plan and started walking and working out, adding three glasses of skim milk per day.
Emmons kept her routine the same but added 16 ounces of skim milk for breakfast and eight ounces at night. After four weeks, our volunteers weighed in. Minor had lost five pounds and an inch around his waist. He said he noticed a big difference in how he was looking. "I think the milk did make a difference, because even when I cheated, my waistline started going down," Minor said.
Seegert also lost five pounds and 2 inches at the waist. She said she was surprised because she doesn't do sit-ups or anything like that.
Emmons was also down five pounds, losing 2 inches around both her abdomen and waist. She said she could tell through the four weeks that she felt better.
Would calcium supplements work? No, said Lesli Bonci, a nutritionist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dairy products have three key ingredients. "It is the calcium, the protein and conjugated linoleic acid that happen to be present in dairy foods," Bonci said. "It seems all of these things working together in synergy impact on the body's ability to lose weight."
If you plan to try the milk diet, experts said what you don't want to do is just add the extra milk calories on top of what you're already eating.
Substitute instead. For instance, replace a glass of morning juice with milk. Don't have both.
According to Bonci, the milk diet kills two birds with one stone. Bonci said the diet optimizes bone health and, at the same time, it might be minimizing the middle.
Another benefit: Milk tends to fill you up so you don't feel as hungry.
Of course, this diet would not be for people who are allergic or have intolerance to dairy products.
taken from
http://www.diabetesincontrol.com