Grape Seed Extract Reduces Salt-Sensitive Hypertension
Nutrition Review
By VRP Staff
Hypertension is strongly related to increased incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD), stroke, renal disease, and all-cause mortality. New findings suggest that grape seed extract can blunt salt-sensitive hypertension to the same extent as previous, potentially carcinogenic, treatments. These findings are
especially significant in light of an article published two years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association that reported that women who took estrogen for ten years or more after menopause were twice as likely to die of ovarian cancer as non-users. Following the JAMA article many women halted estrogen therapy which, for many
post-menopausal women, had been helpful in lowering blood pressure.
Now researchers from the University of Alabama have shown that grape seed extract can control salt-sensitive hypertension at about the same extent as treatment with
either plant estrogens or 17§-estradiol. When grape seed extract was given to spontaneously hypersensitive rats fed on a high salt diet (8 per cent salt) the researchers measured a reduction in blood pressure levels. The researchers also noted that grape seed extract had no effect on heart rate, indicating that the blood pressure lowering effect is specific.
The report concludes that grape seed extract may be useful for blunting hypertension in postmenopausal women who have given up estrogen therapy.
Antihypertensive Effects of Grape Seed Extract in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats.
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