The Importance of General Nutrition in Young Women With a Focus on Calcium: A Series
Episode 1: Hypertension
When I learned about the positive effect calcium can have on high blood pressure, I immediately had a conversation with my wife. “If you make sure you get all the calcium you need each day, it could lower your blood pressure”. The response was, “If I take the calcium you’ll stop bothering me about it, and THAT will lower my blood pressure!” Isn’t love grand? Well, whatever the cause, it worked! After just a few weeks on daily calcium (Cal-EZ in the 16 oz morning coffee I make, nursed over several hours) and a smart decision or two about diet, my wife’s blood pressure came down.
This is what convinced me:
Women who have not yet experienced menopause have well documented nutritional needs. Lifestyle and environment add and subtract from those needs, as do a variety of disease states, but the basic nutritional requirements stay pretty much the same. Multivitamins once attempted to satisfy this core need but recent years have shown a more complex and dynamic view of mineral, vitamin, and herbal requirements.
A strong focus on bone health in postmenopausal women has led to more interest in preventing bone loss in premenopausal women. But women are far more than the sum of their bones. In the last century as women have broken through gender barriers they have also been introduced to changing health challenges. Hypertension and cardiac health and mood and anxiety are some, and my hope here is to share some of the approaches to managing these health challenges.
Categories for Blood Pressure Levels in Adults (measured in millimeters of mercury, or mmHg)
The American Heart Association reported in 2013 that 1 in 3 Americans has high blood pressure (hypertension). That is 77.9 million people. Of those 78 million people, 47% are African American females and30.7% are Caucasian females. In fact, in 2009, 38.3% of all African American female deaths and 14.4% of all Caucasian female deaths listed high blood pressure as the primary cause.
The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension program (the “DASH diet”) is an eating plan that was developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The NHLBI definitively showed that the DASH eating plan lowers high blood pressure and reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The DASH eating plan includes whole grains, fish, poultry, beans, seeds, nuts, and vegetable oils and limits sodium, sweets, sugary beverages, and red meats. Apart from being low in saturated fat and trans-fat, DASH is rich in potassium, magnesium, fiber, protein and, of particular interest, calcium.
An historic article from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), “Reduction of Blood Pressure With Calcium Supplementation in Young Adults” found that in consuming the recommended daily allowance of calcium reduced diastolic (the bottom number) blood pressure by 5.6%! That may not seem like a lot, but remember the difference between normal and highly elevated is only 20%, so a reduction in blood pressure by almost 6% would bring diastolic levels almost to the normal range! So now you know, calcium lowers blood pressure.
Now you can try Cal-EZ free and take advantage of all the benefits of a powdered calcium and vitamin D supplement. Click below to get started!
