CLINICAL TRIAL article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition and Metabolism
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1607968
High-calcium milk improves osteoporosis in postmenopausal women by regulating intestinal flora and steroid hormone biosynthesis
Provisionally accepted
Yanyan Zhao1Xianping Li2Yanpin Liu2
WANG Qishan3
Junying Zhao2Hang Pan1
Huo Chen4
Bin Liu2Weicang Qiao2Li Lin2Jin Yue2
Lijun Chen1,2*- 1Shandong Second Medical University, Weifang, Shandong Province, China
- 2National Engineering Research Center of Dairy Health for Maternal and Child, Beijing Sanyuan Foods Co., Ltd., Beijing, China
- 3Shenyang Hongmei Foods Co，Shenyang, 110000, China, Shenyang, China
- 4Key Laboratory of Dairy Science, College of Food Science, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China
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Postmenopausal women are prone to osteoporosis due to calcium loss, and dairy products, as an important source of calcium, have a positive effect on bone health. In this study, we investigated the effects and potential mechanisms of high-calcium fresh milk in improving bone quality in postmenopausal women through a 1-year randomized controlled trial. The high-calcium milk group significantly increased lumbar spine bone mineral density (L1-4 BMD), slowed bone loss in the left hip and femoral neck, elevated serum phosphorus and 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, and modulated the bone formation marker procollagen type I N-terminal propeptide compared with the regular milk group at 6 months. 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid sequencing showed that high-calcium milk significantly altered the β-diversity of the intestinal flora, increasing the abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Bacteroides, Oscillibacter, and Subdoligranulum, while decreasing the abundance of Firmicutes and Weissella at 12 months. Metabolomics analysis revealed that high-calcium milk improved bone quality by modulating steroid hormone biosynthesis and arachidonic acid metabolic pathways, and that L1-4 BMD was positively correlated with Faecalibacterium spp. and adenine nucleotide. Our study suggests that high-calcium milk can effectively delay postmenopausal osteoporosis by regulating intestinal flora and metabolic pathways, providing a new target for osteoporosis intervention.
Keywords: Functional Food, Bone Density, microbiome, Metabolomics, postmenopausal women 1
Received: 08 Apr 2025; Accepted: 16 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao, Li, Liu, Qishan, Zhao, Pan, Chen, Liu, Qiao, Lin, Yue and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lijun Chen, National Engineering Research Center of Dairy Health for Maternal and Child, Beijing Sanyuan Foods Co., Ltd., Beijing, China
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