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This is the effect of garlic on your blood pressure
Garlic lowers your blood pressure - but only if it is too high. If you have healthy blood pressure, you don't have to worry that garlic will make you hypotensive.
Study
Karin Ried, affiliated with the Australian National Institute of Integrative Medicine, collected the results of 20 previously published trials and reanalyzed them. A total of 970 study participants participated in the trials. They had been given placebos or supplements containing garlic extract.
In the trials, researchers looked at the effect on blood pressure.
Ried had done such meta-studies before. This meta-study, which appeared in 2016, was an update of previous analyses.
Details about the supplements used in the trials are in the table below. Click on it for a larger version.
Results
In this meta-analysis by Ried, garlic supplementation also reduced both diastolic [DBP, first table below] and systolic blood pressure [SBP, second table]. And just as in a previously published meta-study, the blood pressure reduction in subjects with healthy blood pressure [normotensive subgroup] was small and clinically not relevant, but a lot greater in subjects with high blood pressure [hypertensive subgroup].
If you have healthy blood pressure, you do not have to worry that garlic will lower your blood pressure too much. But if your blood pressure is too high, supplementation can lower it by 6-9 points.
Mechanism
Organic sulfur compounds in garlic stimulate the production of nitric oxide. This substance relaxes the blood vessels, causing blood pressure to drop. The same sulfur compounds also convert into sulfur dihydrate. This substance, like nitric oxide, is a vasorelaxant.
Conclusion
"Garlic supplements are highly tolerated and may be considered as a complementary treatment option for hypertension," wrote Ried in her publication.
"Future long-term trials are needed to elucidate the effect of garlic on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality."
Source:
J Nutr. 2016 Feb;146(2):389S-396S.
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Archives:
Cardiovascular Health
Garlic
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