Hypertension and Calcium linked
The high incidence of osteoporosis among the elderly, particularly women, has implicated a need for generous calcium intakes throughout life. Now another disease, hypertension, which affects as many as 58 million Americans and is particularly prevalent among the elderly, is being linked by some researchers to an inadequate intake of calcium.
Hypertension is an increase in vascular resistance most often due to a decreased luminal diameter of the arteries or arterioles. This decrease in luminal diameters is caused by excessive shortening of the vascular smooth muscle actomyosin; the initiator for the contraction (or shortening) is intracellular calcium. At first glance it seems quite incongruous that a deficiency of dietary calcium could be a cause of hypertension.
Many researches attempt to link hypertension to dietary factors and to treat the disorder by dietary manipulations. Dietary factors which have been investigated in relation to hypertension include, in addition to sodium and protein, total calories, fats, alcohol, chloride, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Intensive research concerning the role of sodium in the development or treatment of hypertension has been particularly fruitful because through establishing the fact that certain populations of hypertensives (approximately 30% to 50%) are much more sensitive to an excess of sodium than others, it has strongly suggested that hypertension is a heterogeneous disease, having a variety precipitating factors.
Hypertension and Calcium linked
