Calcium and blood pressure

From epidemiological studies, there is only weak evidence of an association between dietary calcium intake and blood pressure, yet there are a number of biological mechanisms that suggest an important role for calcium in blood pressure regulation.

Result from epidemiological reports and animal studies suggest a threshold for calcium intake below which arterial pressure increases and a low calcium intake may amplify the effects of a high-NaCl diet on blood pressure.

In the human diets with less than 600 mg calcium/day are most clearly associated with hypertension. There was a study found that individuals consuming less than 300 mg/d calcium experienced 2-3 mmHg higher blood pressures compared to those consuming more than 88 mg/d calcium (Harlan and Harlan 1990). 

Because many with high blood pressure have a lower daily calcium intake than people with normal blood pressure, calcium rich foods, including nits and leafy green vegetables such as watercress and kale, should also supplement the diet.
Calcium and blood pressure

Definition of Hypertension

Definition of Hypertension
The World Health Organization defined hypertension as: systolic blood pressure > or equal 160mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure > or equal 95mmHg and border line hypertension as systolic <160 and diastolic pressure 90-94mmHg or systolic 141-159 and diastolic pressure < 90 mmHg. The remainder of the population was considered ‘normotensive’.

Such definitions however are arbitrary because of the continuous nature of the blood pressure distribution. For most cases of hypertension, no underlying clinical case is found on investigation i.e., so called ‘essential’ hypertension. Essential hypertension is type of disease not hitherto recognized in medicine in which the defect is one of degree not of kind, quantitative not qualitative. It is apparently difficult for doctors to understand because it is departure from the ordinary process of binary thought to which they are brought up.

Definitions of hypertension are essentially pragmatic. They may be used to characterize groups of individuals that may benefit from specific treatment regimens – no pharmacologic and pharmacologic. For example, the cut points for ‘hypertension’ may be chosen at the level of blood pressure for which evidence of a treatment benefit is supported by data from randomized controlled clinical trials, and benefits of treatment outweighs risk. However these criteria will exclude the large numbers of people at excess risk from their blood pressure levels, but who are at or below the threshold for therapeutic intervention.
Definition of Hypertension