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Vitamin C Might Help Lower Hypertension
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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 In addition, the participants' blood pressure was found to have plunged nearly 7 percent on average, with a specific drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number on a reading) of 9 percent. However, no significant drop in systolic blood pressure was observed.
But Bruno said it's too early to say that vitamin C can reduce either blood pressure or sympathetic activity among healthy patients -- just among those with high blood pressure.
"(And) our results cannot be directly translated into clinical practice, because to obtain this result, we used one high dose of vitamin C administrated intravenously," she added. "We don't know if chronic oral administration of vitamin C can achieve the same effect."
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Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women and Heart Disease at Lenox Hill Hospital's Heart and Vascular Institute in New York City, added a similar caveat.
"What's interesting about this particular trial is that the vitamin C was given intravenously," she noted. "And maybe that's why it worked here. It's really hard to know. Yet there's something to be said about the concept of vitamin supplementation in treating vascular disease because of the antioxidant content. It makes sense physiologically."
"However, although it would be nice to say to someone, 'if you eat right and take these vitamins, you're going to be OK,' rather than 'here -- take all these medications, with all these side effects,' this is a small esoteric study," Steinbaum said. "This finding is certainly not going to make me or anyone else run out and start giving vitamin C intravenously to our patients."
More information
For additional information on lowering blood pressure, visit the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
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Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 9/19/2008
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SOURCES: Rosa Maria Bruno, M.D., department of internal medicine, University of Pisa in Pisa, Italy; Suzanne Steinbaum, D.O., director, Women and Heart Disease, Heart and Vascular Institute, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; presentation, American Heart Association's Conference of the Council for High Blood Pressure Research, Sept. 17-20, 2008, Atlanta.
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