Dairy Attenuation of Metabolic Disease

Forty overweight and obese subjects (BMI 25-39.9) with metabolic syndrome will be randomized to inadequate dairy (\<0.5 serving/day) and adequate dairy (3.5 servings/day) weight maintenance (eucaloric) diets for 12 weeks. Body weight will be measured weekly and body composition (via dual X-ray absorptiometry), insulin sensitivity index, plasma lipids and calcitrophic hormones will be measured at weeks 0, 4 and 12 of the dietary intervention. Oxidative burden will be assessed by measurement of plasma malonaldehyde, 8-isoprostane F2α and oxidized LDL and inflammatory stress will be assessed by measurement of IL-6, IL-15, MCP, C-reactive protein, adiponectin and TNF-α levels in plasma at 0, 1, 4 and 12 weeks). An additional global evaluation of diet-induced changes in cytokines will be conducted using cytokine protein arrays to profile relative changes in 36 additional potentially relevant cytokines. All data will be analyzed via two-factor (diet X obesity status) multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)