Several years ago, a groundbreaking study showed the medical world that a simple flower can help lower high blood pressure. This study was simple, but the results redirected research into high blood pressure.
The study came out of Tufts University in Boston. Lead researcher Diane L. McKay, PhD and her team of researchers found that this simple flower can help even the most stubborn high blood pressure. In fact, the people with the highest blood pressure benefitted the most.
The study followed only 65 healthy men and women with modestly elevated blood pressure. The researchers divided the group in half and gave one group a placebo. The other group drank hibiscus tea. This is a very simple study. But like I said, the results are impressive.
The group taking a placebo saw a one-point drop in their systolic blood pressure (that’s the top number in the blood pressure reading). But those drinking the hibiscus tea saw their blood pressure drop by an average of 7 points. That’s a significant difference in results. While a 7-point drop doesn’t seem like much, it is. Here’s why:
Studies show over and over that even small changes in blood pressure reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. The longer you keep your blood pressure down, the better the protection. But that’s not all.
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This study used hibiscus tea. Tea is not a concentrated form of the herb. Add to this the fact that this study lasted just six weeks. That means that drinking the tea daily for a longer period of time could increase the drop in blood pressure. And, if you can increase the concentration of hibiscus safely, you could see much greater drops faster.
That, of course, is where supplements come in. One randomized, controlled, double-blind clinical comparison study compared hibiscus to the ACE inhibitor lisinopril. They gave one or the other to patients with stage I or II hypertension. The study used only 250 mg of hibiscus. You can safely take 1,000 mg without any side effects (unless you have an allergy to hibiscus).
The researchers in this study found that the hibiscus worked even better than the hypertension drug. In just four weeks, the hibiscus lowered blood pressure from 146/98 mmHg to 130/86 mmHg. That’s a reduction of 16 systolic points and 12 diastolic points. That’s a very significant improvement and shows that the concentrated form can work even better than the tea.
What’s more, the study authors found that the hibiscus (which has slight diuretic effects) didn’t alter plasma potassium levels. As important as potassium is for your heart, this is great news. Lisinopril and other ACE inhibitors can alter potassium levels to dangerous levels.
So hibiscus can help lower your blood pressure without causing any side effects. You can find hibiscus along with other great blood-pressure lowering nutrients in a new product from Advanced Bionutritionals. It’s called Advanced Blood Pressure Support and it has 750 mg of hibiscus. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.
Your insider for better health,
Steve Kroening
Source:
Arjun Seth, Yasmin Mossavar-Rahmani, Victor Kamensky, Brian Silver, Kamakshi Lakshminarayan, Ross Prentice, Linda Van Horn, and Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller. Potassium Intake and Risk of Stroke in Women With Hypertension and Nonhypertension in the Women’s Health Initiative. Stroke, September 2014 DOI: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.114.006046.