What Is the Role of Calcium in the Body?

Calcium ions are indispensable for various physiological activities of the body. It is used to maintain the biological potential on both sides of the cell membrane and maintain normal nerve conduction function. Maintaining normal muscle contraction and diastolic function and nerve-muscle conduction function, as well as the action mechanism of some hormones are shown by calcium ions.

Summary

Calcium is a form of calcium present in compounds. A calcium atom loses two electrons and becomes a calcium ion.

Calcium (Ca) is one of the important components of the human body, and generally exists in the form of calcium ions. calcium

Summary

Its main physiological functions are based on the above basic cell functions, mainly including the following:

1. Calcium ion is

Calcium supplementation starts before pregnancy

Bone Calcium: During the fetal period, an ossification center is first formed, that is, the epiphysis composed of soft tissue (bone collagen), and calcium and other nutrients from the placenta are continuously deposited on the epiphysis. Formation, but the hardness is not enough. Babies are born, and nutrients such as calcium from food continue to

Calcium supplement traffic light

1. Green light: Vitamin D helps calcium absorption

(1) The intestinal mucosa is the primary channel for calcium absorption, and vitamin D can promote the intestinal mucosa to produce calcium-binding proteins, "carrying" calcium ions through the intestinal cavity wall and into the blood.

(2) Vitamin D can directly stimulate osteoblasts in the bone and promote the deposition of calcium salts; Vitamin D can also promote the activity of osteoclasts, dissolve the bone salt in the old bone and increase the release of bone calcium.

(3) Vitamin D in the kidney indirectly promotes the "recycling" of calcium by the renal tubules.

2, yellow light: less salt is equivalent to calcium.

Scientists have found that the greater the intake of salt, the worse the absorption of calcium. The "Revised Dietary Guidelines" recommends a daily salt limit of no more than 6 grams per person.

Calcium migration produces bad results

Insufficient daily calcium intake, blood calcium "captures" bone calcium to ensure the needs of life activities, and the migration of calcium can cause adverse effects such as vascular sclerosis.

The human body has a self-stabilizing system. When the blood calcium level is low, a message is released immediately. When the parathyroid glands receive the message, they immediately secrete "osteoclastin". This hormone pierces the periosteum, activates osteoclasts and dissolves bone Calcium, deficiency of blood calcium. And these dissolved bone calcium, whose concentration is much higher than blood calcium, is easily deposited on the blood vessel wall, attracting cholesterol into the blood vessels, causing arteriosclerosis. Medical research in recent years has shown that calcium supplementation can not only prevent osteoporosis, but also prevent and cure arteriosclerosis and hypertension, as well as significantly reduce blood lipids.

Calcium antagonist

Calcium antagonists, also called calcium channel blockers, are a very important class of drugs in the treatment of hypertension. More than half of the hypertensive patients taking medication in China use calcium antagonists. Important international clinical studies have shown that Asian patients are more sensitive to calcium antagonists and are more likely to adhere to treatment. So how do calcium antagonists lower blood pressure? How should this class of drugs be used properly?

When it comes to the mechanism of action of calcium antagonists, we must first talk about how hypertension is produced. blood pressure

Alkaline calcium ion ball

It refers to the lateral pressure on the blood vessel wall when blood flows in the blood vessel. Most of the patients with hypertension (over 90%) have no specific cause, and most of them are caused by the weakening of the elasticity of the blood vessel wall and the increase of resistance with age. There are calcium ion channels on the myocardial and vascular wall smooth muscle cell membranes, which control the entry and exit of calcium ions like a gate. The increase of intracellular calcium ion concentration can cause the cells to contract, increase vascular resistance, and increase blood pressure. Calcium antagonists are like faithful gatekeepers. When combined with calcium channels, they prevent calcium ions from entering the cells, thereby relaxing blood vessels, reducing resistance, and lowering blood pressure. In addition, some calcium antagonists such as amlodipine (Luohuxi), diltiazem can also directly relax the coronary arteries that supply the heart's blood for the treatment of angina pectoris.

Calcium antagonists are a large family with many members, much like people sheltering from the rain under the same umbrella, with different gender, age, ethnicity, and personality. The oldest and most commonly used is nifedipine (Xintongding), which is the first generation of calcium antagonists. After taking Xintongding, blood pressure decreased quickly, but due to the rapid expansion of blood vessels, patients often felt headaches, fast heartbeat, blushing, and it was not easy to adhere to treatment. In addition, the effect of heartache is short. Generally, it needs to be taken 3 times a day, and the blood pressure may increase between the two medications. It is difficult to effectively control blood pressure for 24 hours. Based on the current state of economic development in China, a considerable number of patients need low-cost drugs, but at this time, care should be taken not to take short-acting calcium antagonists in long-term and large doses. -blockers can be added to enhance the efficacy and reduce side effects. . ^[3]

In order to overcome the shortcomings of the first-generation calcium antagonists, a second-generation drug was also developed, including the slow-release and controlled-release dosage forms of short-acting calcium antagonists. The outer coat achieves the purpose of extending the duration of the action and reducing the side effects. However, the gastrointestinal function of patients may affect the efficacy of drugs, so such drugs cannot be taken in half.

Luohuoxi is the representative drug of the third generation calcium antagonist, and it is also a long-acting calcium antagonist of the molecule itself. Its half-life is as long as 35-50 hours. Therefore, it is not necessary to use a slow-release or controlled-release dosage form, and it can be taken once a day to control blood pressure smoothly for 24 hours. Its efficacy is not affected by patients' gastrointestinal function and food. Effects can also be taken with most drugs, can also be taken in half. In addition, due to its long duration of action, patients occasionally missed a dose without causing blood pressure to rise.

It is worth mentioning that calcium does not contradict calcium antagonists. In fact, although these two drugs have opposite effects, when they are used in combination, their effects will not only cancel each other, but also promote each other.

Calcium supplementation is to correct negative calcium balance, prevent calcium metabolism disorder and bone calcium loss in the body, and avoid abnormal deposition of calcium salts in blood vessels and soft tissues, and reduce the occurrence of atherosclerosis. There are special calcium ion channels on the cell membrane. Under normal circumstances, the extracellular calcium ion concentration is much larger than the intracellular calcium ion concentration. The maintenance of this concentration gradient is mainly based on the calcium ion channel. Once the regulation of calcium ion channels on the cell membrane fails, a large amount of calcium ions will enter the cell, causing contraction of vascular smooth muscle, increasing blood pressure, and even causing angina pectoris and myocardial infarction. Calcium antagonists reduce the contraction of blood vessels by antagonizing the entry of calcium into cells through the cell membrane. Proper and proper use of calcium antagonists can promptly close calcium channels and block abnormal influx of calcium ions. Calcium antagonists commonly used in clinical practice, such as nifedipine, amlodipine, and lacidipine are the drugs of choice for the treatment of hypertension. It can be seen that both calcium and calcium antagonists can protect the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular, prevent and treat hypertension, and the two are not contradictory when taken together.

Clinical studies have found that while taking antihypertensive drugs in elderly patients with hypertension, taking calcium can help lower blood pressure. In addition, calcium supplements can offset the hypertensive effect of high-salt diets on spontaneous hypertension, which may be related to the fact that calcium can prevent the increase of norepinephrine concentration in plasma.

Calcium and body aging and calcium deficiency

Increased intracellular calcium ions cause cell dysfunction (decline or failure), which is the process of aging of the body. In other words, the process of human aging (the process of organ organ decline) is the process of increasing intracellular calcium. Why does calcium increase in cells?

Calcium deficiency is a major and important factor: calcium deficiency-increased parathyroid hormone secretion-osteocalcin release to the blood (which can lead to osteoporosis)-calcium into cells-increased intracellular calcium-calcitonin Increased secretion-blood calcium returns to the bones (causing bone hyperplasia)

The above process is a loop and feedback process. Intracellular calcium increases, smooth muscle tone increases, and blood pressure rises in some peoplehypertension.

From the above cyclic process, blood calcium cannot truly reflect the body's calcium level. Therefore, it is not possible to determine whether or not calcium deficiency is based on blood calcium levels.

Therefore, proper calcium supplementation is of great clinical significance in delaying aging and preventing diseases.