By Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS, March 30, 2009, abstracted from “Proteins from garden pea may help fight high blood pressure, kidney disease” printed online on the American Chemical Society Website

A myriad of health problems are caused by high blood pressure, which is a worldwide epidemic (1) and the third-leading cause of disability in the U.S. (2). The condition affects an estimated 65 million Americans over the age of 20 (3). One of the most serious health problems caused by high blood pressure is kidney damage (4), since the kidneys are crucial to helping eliminate waste from the body (5). If the kidneys suffer a decrease in function, poisons can build up in the body and significantly affect the body’s health.

Decreasing kidney function can also result in chronic kidney disease, which affects more than 20 million Americans and has been shown to cost more than $30,000 per patient to treat (6). Fortunately, ways to help blood pressure health include soy foods (7), soy nuts (8) and fiber (9) and supplements like fish oil (10) pycnogenol (11) and beta glucan (12). Now a new study (13) has found that garden pea protein may also help with blood pressure health.

In the study presented at the 237th annual meeting of the American Chemists’ Society, researchers found that feeding garden pea protein (as a broken down mixture, not whole peas) to mice with a kidney condition called polycystic kidney disease for 8 weeks resulted in a 20% decrease in blood pressure. What‘s more, urine output in the mice increased by 30%, demonstrating improved kidney function and increased toxin removal from the body by the kidneys.

According to Rotimi Aluko, head researcher in the study, “In people with high blood pressure, our protein could potentially delay or prevent the onset of kidney damage. In people who already have kidney disease, our protein may help them maintain normal blood pressure levels so they can live longer.”

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Danville, CA. You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at mailto:PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.CompleteChiropracticHealthcare.com

Reference:
1. Casas JP. Homocysteine and stroke: evidence on a causal link from mendelian randomization. Lancet 2005; 365(9455): 224-232
2. M Ezzati, AD Lopez, A Rodgers, S Vander Hoorn and CJ. Murray, Selected major risk factors and global and regional burden of disease. Lancet 360 (2002), pp. 1347–1360
3. “High Blood Pressure Statistics” posted on the American Heart Association website
4. PK. Whelton, Epidemiology of hypertension. Lancet 344 (1994), pp. 101–106
5. “The Kidneys And How They Work” postedon http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/Kudiseases/pubs/yourkidneys/
6. Smith DH. Cost of Medical Care for Chronic Kidney Disease and Comorbidity among Enrollees in a Large HMO Population. J Am Soc Nephrol 2004; 15:1300-1306
7. Gong Yang. Longitudinal study of soy food intake and blood pressure among middle-aged and elderly Chinese women Am J Clin Nutr 2005 81: 1012-1017
8. Welty FK. Effect of Soy Nuts on Blood Pressure and Lipid Levels in Hypertensive, Prehypertensive, and Normotensive Postmenopausal Women. Arch Int Med 2007; 167(10): 1060-1067
9. Whelton, SP. Effect of dietary fiber intake on blood pressure: a meta-analysis of randomized, controlled clinical trials. J Hypertens. 2005 Mar;23(3):475-81
10. Wang S. Fish oil supplementation improves large arterial elasticity in overweight hypertensive patients. Eur J Clin Nutr advance online publication, September 5, 2007; doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602886
11. Fano F. Control of Edema in Hypertensive Subjects Treated With Calcium Antagonist (Nifedipine) or Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors With Pycnogenol Clin Appl Thromb Hemost 2006 12: 440-
12. Maki KC. Effects of consuming foods containing oat beta-glucan on blood pressure, carbohydrate metabolism and biomarkers of oxidative stress in men and women with elevated blood pressure. Eur J Clin Nutr advance online publication, December 6, 2006; doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602562
13. “Proteins from garden pea may help fight high blood pressure, kidney disease” posted on the ACS Website http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=WPCP_012360&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=