 Garlic helps lower blood pressure: Study
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-01 07:23 Garlic supplements may lower blood pressure just as effectively as some drugs used to treat hypertension can, according to a new research review. "Supplementation with garlic preparations may provide an acceptable alternative or complementary treatment option for hypertension," Dr Karin Ried and colleagues from The University of Adelaide in South Australia write. Research to date on garlic and blood pressure has had "inconclusive" results, they note, while the last meta-analysis - in which the results of several studies are analyzed collectively - only included studies done up until 1994. To provide an updated perspective, Ried and her team included more recently published studies in their analysis, identifying 11 studies in which the patients were randomly assigned to garlic or placebo. In most studies, participants given garlic took it in powdered form, as a standardized supplement. Doses ranged from 600 mg to 900 mg daily, which study participants took for 12 to 23 weeks. When the researchers pooled the data from the trials, they found that garlic reduced systolic blood pressure, the top number in a blood pressure reading, by 4.6 mm Hg, on average. An analysis limited to people with high blood pressure showed garlic reduced systolic blood pressure by 8.4 mm Hg, on average, and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) by 7.3 mm Hg. The higher a person's blood pressure was at the beginning of the study, the more it was reduced by taking garlic. The effects were similar to those of widely used drugs for treating hypertension, for example beta blockers, which reduce systolic blood pressure by 5 mm Hg, and ACE inhibitors, which produce an 8 mm Hg average drop in systolic blood pressure, the researchers note. The 600 mg to 900 mg dosage used in the studies is equivalent to 3.6 mg to 5.4 mg of garlic's active ingredient, allicin, Ried and her team point out. A fresh clove of garlic contains 5 mg to 9 mg of allicin. More research is needed to determine whether garlic supplementation might have a long-term effect on heart disease risk, the researchers conclude. Diabetes ups defect risks In another report, women who have diabetes before becoming pregnant are about three times as likely as other women to have a baby with at least one birth defect, US researchers said on Wednesday. A variety of different birth defects are associated with mothers who have type 1 diabetes, also called juvenile diabetes, or type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease that is linked to obesity, the researchers said. These included defects of the heart, brain, spine, limbs, kidneys and gastrointestinal tract, penile and ear abnormalities and cleft palate, the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "This study documents the fact that diabetes is associated with a wider range of defects than we had been aware of in the past," Dr Adolfo Correa of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leader of this study, said. Correa said it appears that the condition called gestational diabetes is not associated with an increased risk of birth defects. But Correa said some cases diagnosed as gestational diabetes may actually be type 2 diabetes that simply had gone unrecognized until the pregnancy. Agencies (China Daily 08/01/2008 page11) |
