ABSTRACT

A connection between calcium intake and body weight was ­rst made by McCarron, from the NHANES-I data, and published in 1984 [1]. This observation was widely ignored, probably for three reasons: (1) it did not make sense in terms of what was generally understood with regard to how calcium functioned in the body; (2) there was suf­cient nutritional charlatanry prevalent in modern times to make it easy to place this effect in precisely such a category; and (3) understanding of nutritional biology was not suf­ciently nuanced to allow integration of the nontraditional effects, not just of calcium, but of most other nutrients as well.