It is becoming increasingly apparent among healthcare professionals and researchers in the field of hypertension, that the traditional practice of relying on arbitrary blood pressure measurements obtained in the clinic or a doctor's office setting, is not representative of one's true pressure within the arteries and is not a reliable predictor of the risk of damage to the blood vessels and related organs, known as target organ damage, caused by the elevated pressure. This is partly due to the fact that the traditional approach has been to perform arbitrary reading once per month or even once every 3 months in a doctor's office or clinic, which is too small a number of readings to be representative of one's arterial pressure on a whole.

There are also many factors that can affect one's arterial pressure reading in a doctor's office that are not operative outside of the doctor's office. One illustration of this is the white-coat hypertension, a phenomenon in which a patient's pressure is high in the doctor's office but not elevated when measured outside of the doctor's office, particularly at home. Conversely, there is another group of patients, usually younger patients, who tend have normal readings in the doctor's office but elevated readings outside of the doctor's office. This is known as masked hypertension. It is estimated that 12 million people exhibit white coat hypertension and 20 million people have masked hypertension. This is important because, although doctors generally follow patients that have white coat hypertension, they don't usually treat the condition since arterial pressure is normal outside the office. On the other hand people with masked hypertension normally would not be treated because of normal readings in the doctor's office, but obviously need to be treated since their arterial pressure is elevated outside of the doctor's office which is where they spend most of their time.

Ambulatory blood pressure monitoring with a machine which is worn on the arm and connected to a box worn on the belt that records reading every 15-30 minutes for the 24 hour period is considered to be most representative of one's true arterial pressure and risk for vessel and related organ damage, but because of the expense of these machines measuring readings several times per day with wrist and cuff machines is an acceptable alternative. Although many of the monitoring-machine manufactures recommend performing readings at the same time each day and waiting at least five minutes in between readings if multiple readings are taking, experts in the field of hypertension recommend performing three readings in rapid succession in the morning and three readings in rapid succession at night and don't necessarily restrict the timing of the readings. The multiplicity of readings allows calculation of an average reading and recognition of significant variability of readings in some individuals. Variation in the timing of readings allows one to determine the effect that variable such as exercise, watching television, or consuming caffeine or alcohol has on readings.

In addition to increasing the diagnosis of hypertension, the data obtained from home monitoring can better enable doctors and other healthcare professionals make more rational and appropriate treatment decisions to improve blood pressure control. For example, if a patient is taking anti-hypertensive medication once daily at 8:00 AM but readings are consistently higher than target between 6:00 AM and 8:00 PM but normal at other times and perhaps somewhat low at night, it might be indicative of the fact that most of the medication has cleared the body two to three hours prior to the next scheduled dose, in which case the doctor might decide that night-time dosing or twice daily dosing is more appropriate.

For healthcare professionals to make optimal use of one's home monitoring endeavors the data must be presented to them in an organized and interpretable format. Although charts with hand-written data indicating the date, time and readings are generally acceptable, an ideal format would be have the charted information printed out from computer-generated entries with graphs generated based on the charted data. This is all performed by the ambulatory blood pressure monitors, but again, they are fairly expensive (ranging from $500.00 - $2,000.00). A very workable alternative however, is to use a desktop-based or Internet-based blood pressure tracker program which allows the manual input of data from the home monitor. The blood pressure tracker program saves the charted data and generates a time graph which can be presented to one's doctor at the time of an office visit or transmitted via the Internet prior to a visit. Microsoft provides a free Internet-based program known as Microsoft Healthvault Beta at the time of the writing of this article. Another free program which I highly recommend is a desktop application, Blood Pressure Tracker by SoundTells - Software for Health. In addition performing all of the aforementioned functions, it affords greater privacy because it is not Internet-based.

In summary, home blood pressure monitoring is more representative of one's true arterial pressure because several readings at different times of the day can be taken. Because of the multiplicity of readings, home monitoring is a better predictor of risk of target organ damage caused by elevated pressure. The frequency of readings also allows healthcare professionals to observe trends and variables which affect one's blood pressure and thus make better and informed treatment decisions to improve control. Better control in principle should reduce the frequency of doctor's visits and target organ damage, both of which should curtail medical expenses.

Folic acid is one of the B vitamins and it is necessary for the production of red blood cells and normal metabolism. It is an important vitamin for pregnant women as it can prevent the occurrence of birth defects and prevents infant spinal cord defects - for example Spina bifida.

Folic acid may also help other conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, arthrosclerosis, heart disease, and diarrhea. It can also be helpful in treating epilepsy gingivitis, gout, and cancer - the risk of getting it is reduced.

Folic Acid Benefits

One of the best benefits of Folic Acid is for women who are trying to fall pregnant, and those who are pregnant. Folic Acid helps with the healthy development of the fetus, and can help to prevent conditions such as spina bifida and other neural tube defects that are known as devastating conditions.

To be honest, folic acid benefits go much further than just pregnancy. Folic Acid helps with keeping your heart healthy. The nutrient helps lower homocysteine levels; having high homocysteine impairs blood vessels, which, results in the arteries being vulnerable to the formation of plaque.

This can lead to a higher risk of one getting heart disease. It also known that, people who have trouble with depression, may find folic acid helpful because depression is associated with raised levels of homocysteine.

Further Folic Acid benefits in clued a feeling of energy, and it is known that this nutrient may help counter and combat Alzheimer's disease.

Precautions

Folic acid can have some serious side effects if to much is taken every day. Dangerous levels of consumption are between 5,000 to 10,000 mcg. The RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) stands at 400 mcg per day, however certain people (especially pregnant women, those trying to conceive and the elderly) may need more of this particular nutrient in their diets.

Another point people need to consider is that taking Folic Acidi as a supplement can hide serious deficiency symptoms of vitamin B12 (anemia). Take a look at this we came cross in the following encyclopedia "New Encyclopedia Vitamins, Minerals, Supplements, & Herbs" by Nicola Reavley "Large amounts of folic acid can mask anemia caused by Vitamin B12 deficiency. Although this is rare, in some cases it may lead to permanent nerve damage." pg. 108

Because of this statement, the author of the book advises that people with anemia should not take more than 400 mcg of folic acid per day unless pernicious amenia is first ruled out by your doctor.
Some people suggest that Folic Acid should not be consumed as a stand alone supplement and taken with vitamin B12 or as part of a more comprehensive formula where not only b12 are used, but other important vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids.

Lets take a look at an example from, Reader's Digest book "The Healing Power of Vitamins, Minerals, and Herbs" contains: Buy a folic acid supplement that also contains vitamin B12 (too much of one can mask a deficiency in the other)." pg 293

A deficiency of folic acid could cause some Anemias. The side effects of Folic Acid are rare and are normally due to taking high dosages of the nutrient. If any change occurs after starting a regimen of folic acid, contact your physician immediately. If necessary, go to an emergency facility for evaluation.

Precautions and allergic reactions from Folic Acid

Allergic reactions however, can be serious. Some signs of severe allergic reactions include rash, itching, swelling, dizziness, and breathing difficulties. If you note anything that is not usual for you, seek medical attention right away.

Pregnant women and breast feeding mothers should consult their doctors before using this nutrient.

In recent news, reported is a unique piece of information that has been put out there that may be of interest to women who want to get pregnant. Folic acid, when taken after fertility treatment (invitro fertilization) may raise the odds of producing twins. While this is possible with other fertility treatments, it has been recently found to occur with folic acid.

Our Opinion

We believe many vitamins are best consumed through food sources; however, Folic Acid is not one of these nutrients. The nutrient is easily destroyed and the value of the nutrient is lessened by cooking or storage. On top of this, the human body doesn't store the nutrient for very long. This is why we need to take this nutrient daily to keep on top. Because of what we have said, many experts suggest that supplements should be incorporated in to ones diet for one of the best sources of folic acid benefits, and also, for those people who need more of this nutrient.

There are still good food sources for Folic Acid however, which include, whole grains, various beans, and green vegetables.

On a final note, many foods today are fortified with this vitamin, although they are not the best sources and are far from natural sources.

Our Tips For Obtaining The Best Folic Acid Benefits

1. Nutritional have become unregulated. Studies have shown that consumers of health products only have a 1 in 5 chance of buying a product with the amount of ingredients stated on the label. Also, Products have been found to have dangerous contaminates in them.

Because of this, you should choose a manufacturer that is pharmaceutical GMP compliant. Such places comply with the most stringent manufacturing standards. This ensures you get a product with the stated ingredients, and also, ensures that there are no contaminants within your chosen product