Phosphates .. Danger encapsulated in ready-made foods

 

Phosphates .. Danger encapsulated in ready-made foods

Processed phosphate is added to many types of ready-made and frozen foods, and it is known that phosphate is harmful to people with kidney disease, but doctors warn even healthy people. What are the harms of phosphates in food?

Some people are unaware of the dangers of phosphate, which is added to many types of fast food, preserved and frozen foods, such as ready-made pizza, cheese that cannot be kept in refrigerators, soft drinks, and even some baby foods. Phosphate has several uses. It helps preserve food or add flavor to it. It also helps give dairy products a better texture. It helps maintain the color of cola or prevent powdered milk from clumping.

For some time, phosphates are harmful to people with kidney disease, but a recent study warns against added phosphates, which cause high phosphate levels in the blood even in healthy people and thus increase the risk of heart disease. Dr. says. Matthias Riedel, a nutrition expert in this context: "What is striking in the new data is that phosphates absorbed by the body from nutrition can have adverse effects both on healthy people and in those most at risk of developing atherosclerosis."

And it's not about the natural phosphates found in many foodstuffs, such as meat, legumes, and nuts that the body can easily handle. The phosphorous mineral plays an essential role with calcium in bone metabolism. It helps in storing energy in cells and achieving acid-base balance, and the way the body deals with it varies according to its shape.

In foods rich in natural protein, such as dairy products, the body absorbs only half of the phosphate. The phosphates found in legumes and grains are in the form of phytic acid, which is barely absorbed by the body, so natural phosphates are harmless. Professor Martin Coleman, MD, an internist, explains: "Only sixty percent of natural phosphates are absorbed by the body, while added phosphates are rapidly absorbed almost completely.

This excess of phosphate, which remains in the blood, alters the blood vessels' inner walls, increases the risk of heart attack, and the risk of osteoporosis, which becomes brittle after the calcium dissolves in them. "We know that it accelerates the aging of the skin and muscles that we suffer from after the age of thirty, and increases the possibility of developing atherosclerosis and therefore may cause a significant increase in death rates," Riddell adds.