Health Foods and Multivitamins

Archive for the ‘Calcium’ Category

There are very healthy beverages, today I want to focus on milk. A universal beverage that is recommended for adults and for children in the nutrition it contains. The milk should not be lacking in the consumer’s daily diet, therefore, it is one of the most sold in supermarkets and demanded further that there are different brands of milk. In fact, milk is a food that is also present in other foods, for example, cheese, yogurt, curd or another type of milk (as there is a variety).

The outstanding properties of milk are:

1. On the one hand, milk contains 88 percent water. Water is essential to hydrate your body properly.
2. Milk contains minerals, in particular, is an inexhaustible source of potassium, zinc, magnesium and iodine. Milk is especially important during the early months and years. In fact, there are countless benefits of breastfeeding not only for children but also for parents. On the other hand, milk is essential to strengthen bone health. One thing more than healthy.
3. Milk also contains vitamins, for example, contains vitamin B which is moderately positive for the creation of red blood cells in the blood.
4. Undoubtedly, the milk is also healthier because it contain water, minerals and vitamins, also contains milk proteins.

In your shopping cart you must always remember to add several gallons of milk to be always at home and enjoy the taste of a glass of milk at breakfast, during lunch or dinner. In fact, drinking a glass of warm milk before bed will help you rest better.

Further studies should be conducted regarding the effects of calcium supplementation on iron nutrition, magnesium and zinc. Because of this gap in research today can not make recommendations on routine supplementation with calcium. In fact, given the differences in calcium intake from plant or animal sources and from supplements or fortified foods, it is necessary to make a more specific characterization of calcium intake in pregnant women from different places. Future research should compare countries where calcium intake from dairy products to those in which calcium is taken mainly from vegetable sources (North and Central Europe could be good models).

Finally, more research is needed to better understand the changes that occur in blood pressure during pregnancy, for this, longitudinal studies can be implemented before conception.

Sources of funding: International Programme on Prevention and Control of Micronutrient Malnutrition (International Micronutrient Malnutrition Prevention and Control Program, IMMPACT), Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity in the United States (Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity), Centers for Disease Control Disease and U.S.. UU. (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), Atlanta, GA, USA. UU. Department of Public Health Research, National Institute of Perinatology Isidro Espinosa de los Reyes, 11000 Mexico City, Mexico

It is believed that the provision of calcium supplements pose a significant technological challenge, especially in developing countries (2). Strategies should be developed for the preparation, storage, distribution, quality control and assurance of compliance with daily supplements for large numbers of pregnant women. Cultural barriers, financial and educational to change policies and practices in the plans of supplementation with iron and folic acid requires an assessment. Although iron supplementation can alleviate iron deficiency anemia during pregnancy and folic acid supplementation can prevent neural tube defects, the effective implementation of seemingly simple interventions that promote such supplementation is a considerable challenge. The failures in implementation in various circumstances were attributed to inadequate infrastructure and poor compliance, particularly in developing countries (7). The change in current guidelines for nutrition to be more complex and include calcium requires further evaluation related to the feasibility and cost effectiveness. Recently it was suggested that hypertension induced by pregnancy is the result of impaired implantation (8, 9). If this is true, then calcium supplementation should begin approximately at the stage of conception or at least during the first quarter.

Hypertension is a complication in about 9% of all pregnancies worldwide, pre-eclampsia and eclampsia are the leading causes of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. Currently, gestational hypertension and preeclampsia are considered different diseases that affect the same organs or different levels of severity of the underlying disorder (3). From the available estimates and case-fatality rates, some authors have suggested that die each year, mainly in developing countries, about 40 000 women because of preeclampsia or eclampsia (2).

In a recent systematic review to determine the distribution of causes of maternal deaths was found wide regional variation (4). It was reported that hypertensive disorders are the cause of 16.1% of maternal deaths in developing countries, 9.1% Africa, 9.1% in Asia, and 25.7% in Latin America and the Caribbean (4).

APPLICABILITY OF RESULTS

Although calcium supplementation, used to reduce the risk of hypertension and preeclampsia during pregnancy, can be an intervention feasible in developing and developed countries, several issues must be examined before recommendations can be made. One issue is the bioavailability of calcium in the supplements, depending on whether they are consumed with food, its solubility and dose. Additional research is needed on the most effective dose, frequency, calcium compounds and characteristics of the tablet before recommendations can be made clear. In addition, calcium interacts with iron, zinc, magnesium and phosphorus, which are important micronutrients that are also necessary during pregnancy (5). Calcium inhibits the absorption of iron in a dose-dependent mechanism and saturable dose-dependent, suggesting that calcium supplementation, when used, should be administered with the recommended daily iron and folic acid. The concentration of calcium in mineral supplements and multivitamins for pregnancy is much lower than the amounts used in the studies that appear in this review, in order to reduce the risk of hypertensive disorders. In fact, the multiple micronutrient supplement of the WHO / UNICEF / UNU does not contain calcium

The heterogeneity of classification systems affect any summary results of epidemiological data and, therefore, be taken into account in interpreting the results. This includes, among others, lack of standardization in the relationship between different components of the definitions of outcomes and the risk of adverse short and long term, the effect of individual training of health workers in the accurate measurement blood pressure in pregnant women, the various instruments used for measuring blood pressure, the various tests of proteinuria and blood pressure measurement used in the diagnosis and screening, and the validity of the initial intake of calcium stocks (2). In addition, tests and measures taken in the research process often are not feasible in routine practice in under-resourced and therefore, the results of research may have limited application in situations real life.

Although the authors of the review used a careful and detailed methodology did not take into account the physiological processes taking place, clinical studies in the review were not adjusted for gestational age at start of supplementation, in some of them, the supplementation started before week 20 and others from the week 27 – and stressed the need to conduct a subgroup analysis of the different outcomes depending on the duration of exposure to calcium supplementation.

evaluated the effects of supplementation with 1 g calcium per day in hypertensive disorders and other maternal and infant outcomes in pregnant women without hypertension at less than 34 weeks gestation. In the review included 12 randomized controlled trials. Most studies assessed only primiparous or nulliparous women, and women at low risk for hypertensive disorders.

Subgroup analysis was used to evaluate the results in terms of: (i) the risk of hypertensive disorders (low or average risk [not selected] or high risk [adolescents, a history of preeclampsia, increased sensitivity to angiotensin II or pre-existing hypertension ]), and (ii) baseline calcium intake in women or in those who belonged to the study populations. The authors of individual trials identified that calcium intake is low when the average intake of the population is <900 mg per day. Adequate calcium intake is that the authors of trials defined as the average intake of the populations of ? 900 mg per day. Note that the classification of calcium intake was based largely on population surveys or participating centers instead of the women studied. Data from 11 studies involving 14 946 women suggest that women who received supplementation with calcium (> 1 g per day) during pregnancy were less likely to high blood pressure (with or without proteinuria) compared with those who took placebo (relative risk [RR] 0.70, confidence interval [CI] 95%: 0.57 to 0.86). Similarly, the data from 12 studies involving 15 206 women suggest that women who received supplementation with calcium (> 1 g per day) during pregnancy were less likely to have preeclampsia than those who had taking placebo (RR: 0.48, 95% CI: 0.33 to 0.69). However, the heterogeneity of treatment effect was substantial (I square> 50%) and, therefore, the results should be interpreted with caution.

The data from four clinical trials involving 9732 women suggest that the rate of severe morbidity and maternal death composite outcome was lower in women who received supplementation with calcium (> 1 g per day) during pregnancy compared with those who took placebo (RR 0.80, 95% CI: 0.65 to 0.97).

There were no significant differences between women who received supplementation with calcium (> 1 g per day) and those who took placebo with respect to the following outcomes: placental abruption, caesarean section, proteinuria, severe preeclampsia, eclampsia, admission of women to intensive care unit, maternal death, duration of hospitalization of the mother ? 7 days, premature birth, low birth weight, infant small for gestational age, admission of the newborn to the neonatal intensive care unit, newborn stay in the intensive care unit ? 7 days, and stillbirth or death before hospital discharge.

About Coral Calcium

Coral Calcium is derived from corals of the order Scleractinia. Coral reefs are such an exoskeleton (external skeleton): This mineral structure, consisting mainly of calcium carbonate, is used to structure the settlement.

When a piece of coral off the structure and falls to the bottom of the sea, the organism dies and there remains only the minerals and trace elements of the skeleton. These debris that is ground into fine powder and is sold under the name of coral calcium.

The structure of coral is so similar to the bones of animals and humans as medicine uses it for several decades as the basis for bone reconstruction.

In Japan and India, traditional medicine has long used this substance as a source of calcium. However, advertising exaggerated which is the subject of coral calcium today, the United States in particular, lends properties that calcium does not and has never had.

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