The health benefits of phosphorus include healthy bone formation, improved digestion, regulated excretion, protein formation, hormonal balance, improved energy extraction, cellular repair, optimized chemical reactions, and proper nutrient utilization. The health benefits of phosphorus make it an important constituent of any diet.
Phosphorus is an important constituent of human bones, meaning that it would be impossible to one function normally without an adequate amount of this mineral in the body. In fact, phosphorus is regularly noted as the second most profuse mineral in the human body, and is the second most important element when it comes to maintaining bone health and integrity, behind calcium.
Apart from providing strength to bones and teeth, other health benefits of phosphorus are essential for performing essential activities for different body parts like the brain, kidney, heart and blood. Therefore, it is a very bad choice for your health to exclude phosphorus from the list of nutrients that make it onto your plate.
Deficiency Symptoms
The most significant deficiency symptoms of phosphorus include weak bones and discomfort in various body joints. Phosphorus acts in a similar way as calcium does in providing strength to bones, so a deficiency of phosphorus may lead to weakness, tooth decay, rickets and other related bone problems. People may also experience a loss of appetite and diminished body stamina to perform routine activities. Along with all of these foul symptoms, a deficiency of phosphorus may also invite numbness, anxiety, tremors, weight loss and stunted growth. It is an essential part of our diet, particularly as children, when the most growth and development occurs, and needs to happen regularly and with a full backing of the proper nutrients.
Important Sources of Phosphorus
The most important sources of phosphorus include nuts and legumes (lentils). Also, one may include sunflower seeds, potatoes, broccoli and peas on the list of phosphorus-rich food items.
Health Benefits of Phosphorus
The health benefits of phosphorus are not restricted to one category, as it has a number of critical functions for other body parts as well:
Bone Formation: Phosphorus is a vital part of the growth process, as well as the maintenance of bones and teeth. It works in association with calcium to create strong bones, which can withstand the normal wear and tear of human life. It also helps in boosting the health of your gums and tooth enamel. It also helps in relieving serious problems like bone loss or the loss of mineral density, also known as osteoporosis. This mineral lays the foundation of a strong skeletal structure to ensure health and functional living. One of the recent discoveries of phosphorous also link it to heart health, meaning that with a proper intake, you can better protect yourself from a range of cardiovascular diseases.
Digestion: Phosphorus plays an important role in facilitating effective digestion in the human body. It does this by stimulating the digestion of riboflavin and niacin in an efficient way. These two vitamins are also essential for human health, so any way that their uptake can be maximized is a good thing. These two varieties of vitamin B are responsible for everything from energy metabolism to neurological and emotional response systems. Beyond the uptake of other vitamins and minerals, phosphorous directly clears up indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, and generally tones up the digestive system for regular, healthy bowel movements. This increases the health of the digestive system, as well as that of the kidneys, since the toxins are being eliminated from the body, rather than recycling through the kidneys and stressing that system.
Excretion and Urination: Phosphorus plays an important role in keeping the kidneys healthy. It does this by ensuring the proper release of waste from kidneys through the process of urination and excretion. By increasing the quantity and frequency of urination, the body is able to balance its levels of uric acid, excess salts, water, and even fat, since urine is usually about 4% fat. Phosphorus encourages the healthy balance of all fluids and materials that are eliminated from the body, thereby helping the entire body remain healthy and toxin-free.
Weakness: Phosphorus has the ability to remove minor health problems like muscle weakness, numbness, fatigue and similar ailments. Normal levels of phosphorus in the body are a great way to remain fit and active. A normal amount can be approximately 1200 mg for adults, according to experts and from suggestions of various health practitioners. Sexual weakness can also be cured with healthy supplementation of phosphorus into the body, so issues like loss of libido, frigidity, impotence, and sperm motility can be boosted by having an adequate supply of phosphorus in your system.
Brain Function: Since phosphorus is an essential element found around as well as inside the cells of the brain, it is obviously responsible for important functions. Proper levels of phosphorus guarantee proper brain function and cognitive growth and development. Studies have linked a phosphorus deficiency to an increased risk of cognitive malfunction, and the early onset of neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Protein Formation: Phosphorus is one of the most important elements in the creation of proteins, which further help in the process of reproduction. It also facilitates the maximum utilization of proteins in the human body to ensure proper growth of cells, along with their repair when necessary. In the same manner, phosphorus also helps our bodies utilize carbohydrates as well as fats. The metabolism of proteins is what keeps our body growing and maintaining itself as the wear and tear of the years continues. It is one of the most essential parts of human metabolism, so phosphorus’ stimulating effect is vital to our overall health.
Hormone Balance: The health benefits of phosphorus may be considered vital for regulating the balance of hormones in the human body. It ensures that hormones, especially those required for good reproductive health, are always present in appropriate, balanced amounts. Phosphorus does this by directly interacting with the endocrine glands of the body and helps to regulate the creation and release of hormones. The hundreds of hormones in our body play extremely important roles in all of our health issues, and phosphorus is an irreplaceable part of that control system.
Energy Extraction: Phosphorus aids in the process of energy extraction by stimulating the process of metabolism of different nutrients. Furthermore, it helps in the flow of energy and its efficient usage by different organ systems, some of which is due to its ability to absorb vitamins so efficiently.
Cell Repair: Phosphorus also contributes to the repair process and maintenance of various body cells which suffer from daily wear and tear. It ensures that body cells are developed properly and remain active for impressive overall health. This contribution mainly comes in the form of helping to create protein and stimulating the correct hormones to react accordingly around the body to stimulate metabolic activity.
Chemical Reactions: Phosphorus acts as a participant or co-factor in a number of chemical reactions taking place inside the body. Also, it facilitates the proper utilization of various nutrients entering the body. All in all, be sure to always include phosphorus in your diet, you won’t get far without it!
Phosphate Additives
The consumption of phosphorus preservatives in junk food and injected into meat may damage blood vessels, accelerate the aging process, and contribute to osteoporosis.
The use of a vegan diet for patients with kidney failure controlling the dietary phosphorus intake is the lynch-pin in the successful control of a leading cause of disease and death in kidney failure patients, too much phosphorus in the blood.
But now we're beginning to realize that absorbing too much phosphorus isn't good for anyone. Having high levels in our blood has been found to be an independent predictor of heart attacks and mortality in the general population, increasing the risk of not only kidney failure, but heart failure, heart attacks, coronary death and overall death. Higher phosphate levels associated with a significantly shorter lifespan. Dietary intake of phosphate is an important matter not just for persons with kidney disease, but also for everybody. It's thought to cause damage to blood vessels and accelerate the aging process, and even potentially hurt our bones, by contributing to osteoporosis by disrupting hormonal regulation. The estimated average requirement of phosphorus is less than 600 a day, but the estimated average intake is nearly twice that in the United States. How do we stay away from the stuff?
If you look at nutrient tables, it looks like many plant foods have as much phosphorus as many animal foods, so why are plant-based diets so effective in treating kidney failure patients? Because most of the phosphorus in plant foods is found in the form of phytic acid, which we can't digest, so the bioavailability of plant phosphates is usually less than 50%. See only a third to a half of plant phosphorus may be absorbable, whereas most animal products are up around 75%.
So when you adjust for how much actually gets into our system, you see plant foods are better. It's like the absorption of heme and non-heme iron, your body can protect itself from absorbing too much plant-based iron, but can't stop excess blood-based, or heme iron from animals slipping through the intestinal wall.
The worst kind of phosphorus, that’s absorbed nearly 100%, are phosphate additives added, for example, to cola drinks, junk foods, meats, and cheese. Why would they do that? Cola drinks would otherwise be black. Without the added phosphate, there would be so many glycotoxins produced that the beverage would turn pitch black. Thus, cola drinks owe their brown color to phosphate.
How often is poultry injected with phosphates? The vast majority of chicken products—more than 90%—were found to contain these additives and most of the packages of meat didn't list the additives on their label.
Sometimes they call the phosphate additives "flavorings" or "broth," and sometimes the labels don’t say anything at all. If they do list them, it will probably be ones of these. I'd recommend minimizing one's intake of anything with those four letters: p.h.o.s. They're also used in a lot in junk foods and fast food. This one has phosphorus and aluminum. You see this a lot in processed cheeses. One grilled cheese sandwich and we may exceed the World Health Organization’s provisional tolerable daily intake of aluminum by 428%.
Phosphate additives play an especially important role in the meat industry, where they are used as preservatives, for the same reason, to enhance a meat product’s color. Just like the dairy industry adds aluminum to cheese, meat and poultry is "enhanced" by injecting it with phosphates. If you look at meat industry trade journals and can get past all the macabre ads for head dropping robots for the kill floor and foot chopper-offers,you'll see all these ads for injection machines. Why? Because of increased profitability. Enhanced meats have better color and less purge.
Purge is a term used to describe the liquid that seeps from flesh as it ages. Many consumers find this unattractive, so the industry views it as a win-win. When you inject chicken with phosphates the consumer benefits through the perception of enhanced quality, and the processor benefits from increased yield because they just pumped it up with water and they sell it by the pound. The problem is that it can boost phosphorus levels in meat nearly 70%, a real and insidious danger for kidney patients, but now we know it's a danger for all.
And the food industry no longer has to list phosphorus content on the Nutrition Facts label. There have certainly been calls from the public health community to mandate that phosphorus content of foods be included back on the nutrition facts label. Has not happened yet.....
All these studies bring home the same strong message: phosphorus-containing additives are present in most meat products and significantly increase the phosphorus content. Moreover, the lack of this information in the Nutrition Facts labels and even in nutrition databases prevents patients and dietitians from accurately estimating food phosphorus content and intake. So as if animal products weren't bad enough already, the added phosphates may bring them up to here.
How to Avoid Phosphate Additives
The vast majority of chicken and poultry products are injected with phosphorus preservatives, which are often not listed in the ingredients. Reducing one’s intake of meat, junk food, fast food, and processed cheese may help lower intake until labeling is mandated.
Most future medical professionals surveyed were insufficiently aware—in fact 2/3 had no clue—of the risks related to prolonged high dietary phosphate intake and even if they knew it was a problem, they didn't know which foods have had it added. 99% knew sugar was added to soda, but only 7% knew that phosphates were added. Even fewer know they inject it into most packages of meat.
Though this practice remains banned in Europe thanks to a 1982 ruling, 11 different phosphate salts are now allowed to be injected into meat and poultry in the United States. Despite the fact that phosphate is considered an arterial toxin, causing our arteries to stiffen up within just two hours of consumption, making modern poultry not only more dangerous from a heart disease standpoint, but may also be making poultry more dangerous from a food safety standpoint.
What are the effects of phosphate additives on the survival of our #1 cause of bacterial food poisoning in chicken exudates? Chicken exudate is the same as poultry purge, the chicken "juice." It's the fluid that seeps out from processed poultry carcasses and is often found to be contaminated with considerable numbers of Campylobacter bacteria. It is comprised of water, blood, fats, and other materials added to the poultry during processing. If you don't inject chicken with phosphate, the exudates seeping into the package may grow about 100 campylobacter bacteria (this is a log scale). You add some phosphate and you're up to a hundred million bacteria--a million times more.
The addition of phosphates to chicken has the potential to increase the survival of Campylobacterby 100 fold or more. The infectious dose for campylobacter has been shown to be as little as 500 organisms. How much might there be in chicken? 100,000 can be easily recovered from washes of whole chicken carcasses.
So what does a million times more food poisoning bacteria mean for the risk to consumers? Well even just a hundred fold increase in these fecal matter bacteria can mean a 30 fold difference in the number of human outbreaks of Campylobacter, a food borne disease that can leave people paralyzed. But hey, if the poultry industry doesn't add phosphates, how are they going to enhance the moisture absorbency, color and flavor, and reduce product shrinkage?
Phosphorus is an important constituent of human bones, meaning that it would be impossible to one function normally without an adequate amount of this mineral in the body. In fact, phosphorus is regularly noted as the second most profuse mineral in the human body, and is the second most important element when it comes to maintaining bone health and integrity, behind calcium.
Apart from providing strength to bones and teeth, other health benefits of phosphorus are essential for performing essential activities for different body parts like the brain, kidney, heart and blood. Therefore, it is a very bad choice for your health to exclude phosphorus from the list of nutrients that make it onto your plate.
Deficiency Symptoms
The most significant deficiency symptoms of phosphorus include weak bones and discomfort in various body joints. Phosphorus acts in a similar way as calcium does in providing strength to bones, so a deficiency of phosphorus may lead to weakness, tooth decay, rickets and other related bone problems. People may also experience a loss of appetite and diminished body stamina to perform routine activities. Along with all of these foul symptoms, a deficiency of phosphorus may also invite numbness, anxiety, tremors, weight loss and stunted growth. It is an essential part of our diet, particularly as children, when the most growth and development occurs, and needs to happen regularly and with a full backing of the proper nutrients.
Important Sources of Phosphorus
The most important sources of phosphorus include nuts and legumes (lentils). Also, one may include sunflower seeds, potatoes, broccoli and peas on the list of phosphorus-rich food items.
Health Benefits of Phosphorus
The health benefits of phosphorus are not restricted to one category, as it has a number of critical functions for other body parts as well:
Bone Formation: Phosphorus is a vital part of the growth process, as well as the maintenance of bones and teeth. It works in association with calcium to create strong bones, which can withstand the normal wear and tear of human life. It also helps in boosting the health of your gums and tooth enamel. It also helps in relieving serious problems like bone loss or the loss of mineral density, also known as osteoporosis. This mineral lays the foundation of a strong skeletal structure to ensure health and functional living. One of the recent discoveries of phosphorous also link it to heart health, meaning that with a proper intake, you can better protect yourself from a range of cardiovascular diseases.
Digestion: Phosphorus plays an important role in facilitating effective digestion in the human body. It does this by stimulating the digestion of riboflavin and niacin in an efficient way. These two vitamins are also essential for human health, so any way that their uptake can be maximized is a good thing. These two varieties of vitamin B are responsible for everything from energy metabolism to neurological and emotional response systems. Beyond the uptake of other vitamins and minerals, phosphorous directly clears up indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, and generally tones up the digestive system for regular, healthy bowel movements. This increases the health of the digestive system, as well as that of the kidneys, since the toxins are being eliminated from the body, rather than recycling through the kidneys and stressing that system.
Excretion and Urination: Phosphorus plays an important role in keeping the kidneys healthy. It does this by ensuring the proper release of waste from kidneys through the process of urination and excretion. By increasing the quantity and frequency of urination, the body is able to balance its levels of uric acid, excess salts, water, and even fat, since urine is usually about 4% fat. Phosphorus encourages the healthy balance of all fluids and materials that are eliminated from the body, thereby helping the entire body remain healthy and toxin-free.
Weakness: Phosphorus has the ability to remove minor health problems like muscle weakness, numbness, fatigue and similar ailments. Normal levels of phosphorus in the body are a great way to remain fit and active. A normal amount can be approximately 1200 mg for adults, according to experts and from suggestions of various health practitioners. Sexual weakness can also be cured with healthy supplementation of phosphorus into the body, so issues like loss of libido, frigidity, impotence, and sperm motility can be boosted by having an adequate supply of phosphorus in your system.
Brain Function: Since phosphorus is an essential element found around as well as inside the cells of the brain, it is obviously responsible for important functions. Proper levels of phosphorus guarantee proper brain function and cognitive growth and development. Studies have linked a phosphorus deficiency to an increased risk of cognitive malfunction, and the early onset of neurological conditions like Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Protein Formation: Phosphorus is one of the most important elements in the creation of proteins, which further help in the process of reproduction. It also facilitates the maximum utilization of proteins in the human body to ensure proper growth of cells, along with their repair when necessary. In the same manner, phosphorus also helps our bodies utilize carbohydrates as well as fats. The metabolism of proteins is what keeps our body growing and maintaining itself as the wear and tear of the years continues. It is one of the most essential parts of human metabolism, so phosphorus’ stimulating effect is vital to our overall health.
Hormone Balance: The health benefits of phosphorus may be considered vital for regulating the balance of hormones in the human body. It ensures that hormones, especially those required for good reproductive health, are always present in appropriate, balanced amounts. Phosphorus does this by directly interacting with the endocrine glands of the body and helps to regulate the creation and release of hormones. The hundreds of hormones in our body play extremely important roles in all of our health issues, and phosphorus is an irreplaceable part of that control system.
Energy Extraction: Phosphorus aids in the process of energy extraction by stimulating the process of metabolism of different nutrients. Furthermore, it helps in the flow of energy and its efficient usage by different organ systems, some of which is due to its ability to absorb vitamins so efficiently.
Cell Repair: Phosphorus also contributes to the repair process and maintenance of various body cells which suffer from daily wear and tear. It ensures that body cells are developed properly and remain active for impressive overall health. This contribution mainly comes in the form of helping to create protein and stimulating the correct hormones to react accordingly around the body to stimulate metabolic activity.
Chemical Reactions: Phosphorus acts as a participant or co-factor in a number of chemical reactions taking place inside the body. Also, it facilitates the proper utilization of various nutrients entering the body. All in all, be sure to always include phosphorus in your diet, you won’t get far without it!
Phosphate Additives
The consumption of phosphorus preservatives in junk food and injected into meat may damage blood vessels, accelerate the aging process, and contribute to osteoporosis.
The use of a vegan diet for patients with kidney failure controlling the dietary phosphorus intake is the lynch-pin in the successful control of a leading cause of disease and death in kidney failure patients, too much phosphorus in the blood.
But now we're beginning to realize that absorbing too much phosphorus isn't good for anyone. Having high levels in our blood has been found to be an independent predictor of heart attacks and mortality in the general population, increasing the risk of not only kidney failure, but heart failure, heart attacks, coronary death and overall death. Higher phosphate levels associated with a significantly shorter lifespan. Dietary intake of phosphate is an important matter not just for persons with kidney disease, but also for everybody. It's thought to cause damage to blood vessels and accelerate the aging process, and even potentially hurt our bones, by contributing to osteoporosis by disrupting hormonal regulation. The estimated average requirement of phosphorus is less than 600 a day, but the estimated average intake is nearly twice that in the United States. How do we stay away from the stuff?
If you look at nutrient tables, it looks like many plant foods have as much phosphorus as many animal foods, so why are plant-based diets so effective in treating kidney failure patients? Because most of the phosphorus in plant foods is found in the form of phytic acid, which we can't digest, so the bioavailability of plant phosphates is usually less than 50%. See only a third to a half of plant phosphorus may be absorbable, whereas most animal products are up around 75%.
So when you adjust for how much actually gets into our system, you see plant foods are better. It's like the absorption of heme and non-heme iron, your body can protect itself from absorbing too much plant-based iron, but can't stop excess blood-based, or heme iron from animals slipping through the intestinal wall.
The worst kind of phosphorus, that’s absorbed nearly 100%, are phosphate additives added, for example, to cola drinks, junk foods, meats, and cheese. Why would they do that? Cola drinks would otherwise be black. Without the added phosphate, there would be so many glycotoxins produced that the beverage would turn pitch black. Thus, cola drinks owe their brown color to phosphate.
How often is poultry injected with phosphates? The vast majority of chicken products—more than 90%—were found to contain these additives and most of the packages of meat didn't list the additives on their label.
Sometimes they call the phosphate additives "flavorings" or "broth," and sometimes the labels don’t say anything at all. If they do list them, it will probably be ones of these. I'd recommend minimizing one's intake of anything with those four letters: p.h.o.s. They're also used in a lot in junk foods and fast food. This one has phosphorus and aluminum. You see this a lot in processed cheeses. One grilled cheese sandwich and we may exceed the World Health Organization’s provisional tolerable daily intake of aluminum by 428%.
Phosphate additives play an especially important role in the meat industry, where they are used as preservatives, for the same reason, to enhance a meat product’s color. Just like the dairy industry adds aluminum to cheese, meat and poultry is "enhanced" by injecting it with phosphates. If you look at meat industry trade journals and can get past all the macabre ads for head dropping robots for the kill floor and foot chopper-offers,you'll see all these ads for injection machines. Why? Because of increased profitability. Enhanced meats have better color and less purge.
Purge is a term used to describe the liquid that seeps from flesh as it ages. Many consumers find this unattractive, so the industry views it as a win-win. When you inject chicken with phosphates the consumer benefits through the perception of enhanced quality, and the processor benefits from increased yield because they just pumped it up with water and they sell it by the pound. The problem is that it can boost phosphorus levels in meat nearly 70%, a real and insidious danger for kidney patients, but now we know it's a danger for all.
And the food industry no longer has to list phosphorus content on the Nutrition Facts label. There have certainly been calls from the public health community to mandate that phosphorus content of foods be included back on the nutrition facts label. Has not happened yet.....
All these studies bring home the same strong message: phosphorus-containing additives are present in most meat products and significantly increase the phosphorus content. Moreover, the lack of this information in the Nutrition Facts labels and even in nutrition databases prevents patients and dietitians from accurately estimating food phosphorus content and intake. So as if animal products weren't bad enough already, the added phosphates may bring them up to here.
How to Avoid Phosphate Additives
The vast majority of chicken and poultry products are injected with phosphorus preservatives, which are often not listed in the ingredients. Reducing one’s intake of meat, junk food, fast food, and processed cheese may help lower intake until labeling is mandated.
Most future medical professionals surveyed were insufficiently aware—in fact 2/3 had no clue—of the risks related to prolonged high dietary phosphate intake and even if they knew it was a problem, they didn't know which foods have had it added. 99% knew sugar was added to soda, but only 7% knew that phosphates were added. Even fewer know they inject it into most packages of meat.
Though this practice remains banned in Europe thanks to a 1982 ruling, 11 different phosphate salts are now allowed to be injected into meat and poultry in the United States. Despite the fact that phosphate is considered an arterial toxin, causing our arteries to stiffen up within just two hours of consumption, making modern poultry not only more dangerous from a heart disease standpoint, but may also be making poultry more dangerous from a food safety standpoint.
What are the effects of phosphate additives on the survival of our #1 cause of bacterial food poisoning in chicken exudates? Chicken exudate is the same as poultry purge, the chicken "juice." It's the fluid that seeps out from processed poultry carcasses and is often found to be contaminated with considerable numbers of Campylobacter bacteria. It is comprised of water, blood, fats, and other materials added to the poultry during processing. If you don't inject chicken with phosphate, the exudates seeping into the package may grow about 100 campylobacter bacteria (this is a log scale). You add some phosphate and you're up to a hundred million bacteria--a million times more.
The addition of phosphates to chicken has the potential to increase the survival of Campylobacterby 100 fold or more. The infectious dose for campylobacter has been shown to be as little as 500 organisms. How much might there be in chicken? 100,000 can be easily recovered from washes of whole chicken carcasses.
So what does a million times more food poisoning bacteria mean for the risk to consumers? Well even just a hundred fold increase in these fecal matter bacteria can mean a 30 fold difference in the number of human outbreaks of Campylobacter, a food borne disease that can leave people paralyzed. But hey, if the poultry industry doesn't add phosphates, how are they going to enhance the moisture absorbency, color and flavor, and reduce product shrinkage?