More Vitamin C May Lower Blood Pressure
Worried about high blood pressure? Be sure to get lots of Vitamin C.
That’s the message from two new studies showing that people with the most Vitamin C in their blood have lower blood pressure.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University analyzed the Vitamin C in the blood of a group of 241 elderly Chinese-Americans. The more Vitamin C, the lower the blood pressure. Virtually all the C came from food, not supplements.
Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia discovered the same link between Vitamin C and blood-pressure in a group of 67 people of all ages with normal to mild high blood pressure.
The idea that Vitamin C might somehow lower blood pressure is a fairly new idea, according to the USDA’s Dr. Paul F. Jacques. And, he notes, the benefit may not come entirely from Vitamin C but from other compounds in high-Vitamin C foods.
That means it’s wiser to eat foods containing high amounts of Vitamin C than to take Vitamin C pills, he says. But if you already have a good diet, he agrees that Vitamin C pills might be additional insurance against high blood pressure.
Why do Asian women have such low rates of breast cancer? One reason may be their diet high in soybeans, says Dr. Stephen Barnes, associate professor of pharmacology and biochemistry at the University of Alabama.
It stands to reason, says Barnes, because soybeans actually contain a compound that is very similar chemically to a drug called tamoxifen that is used quite successfully to stop the spread of breast cancer in certain women.
In animal studies, Barnes found that soybeans also blocked breast cancers. He put some animals on a high-soybean diet, others on a regular diet, and then subjected all to powerful cancer-causing agents. Rats fed soybeans had from 40 to 65% fewer breast cancers.
The active soybean agents, called “phytoestrogens,” counteract cancer-promoting estrogen, the same way the chemotherapeutic drug tamoxifen does, says Barnes.
And where do you find the anti-cancer phytoestrogens? In regular soybeans, soy milk, soy flour and miso (soybean paste) sold at health food or Asian food stores, as well as in soybean curd (tofu) available in most supermarkets.
Is canned tuna a good source of disease-fighting Omega-3 type fatty acids? Yes, you can get substantial amounts of Omega-3 in canned tuna fish, especially albacore or white tuna.
There’s dramatic evidence that such Omega-3 fish oil helps prevent heart disease, as well as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and possibly certain cancers.
According to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures, 3 1/2 ounces of canned white (albacore) tuna (packed in water) gives you about 700 milligrams of Omega-3 type oil. That’s more than the daily amount that slashed the chances of heart attack by 36% in one study of middle-aged American men. Unfortunately, the same amount of less expensive “light” canned tuna has only 110 milligrams of Omega-3--one-sixth as much.
Draining the oil from canned tuna, washes away from 15 to 25% of the Omega-3 that has leached from the fish into the oil. You lose only 3% of the Omega-3 when you drain water-packed tuna, according to studies.
