Teenage Girls Dietary Intake, Attitude Toward Dairy Products, and Bone Mineral Density One Year after the Cessation of a Dairy Product Food Supplement Study

Abstract

Dietary calcium is important for reaching skeletal maturity in adolescents. Ninety-five percent of bone acquisition appears to be completed by the age of 18 years and a further 0 to 5% by the age of 30 years. A recent metaanalysis evaluating all the existing literature confirms this finding, with a positive relationship between calcium intake during adolescence and bone mass in females 18 to 50 years of age (1). Prospective randomized clinical trials have shown that calcium supplementation can increase bone acquisition in adolescence (2–7), early adulthood, and the third decade of life (8, 9). When calcium supplementation ceased, the benefit in bone mineral density appeared to disappear (10–12). However, in a recent dairy food supplementation study (13), the beneficial effect in bone density was maintained after the cessation of the dairy food supplement. We have examined the long-term effects and benefits in bone mineral density and attitude towards dairy products one year after the cessation of a two-year dairy product food supplementation study.