A new study has found that the superfood spirulina may help\nreduce blood pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Made from the dried biomass of algae, spirulina is now added\nto foods and used as a supplement, often in tablet form. Because it\u2019s high in\niron, protein and other nutrients, researchers have studied its ability to help\nthose who are malnourished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previous research has shown that spirulina can help control\ninflammation and glucose and lipids levels in the blood. It may also protect\nagainst some forms of cancer and reduce the symptoms of allergic rhinitis\n(a.k.a. \u201chay fever\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scientists from a variety of Italian institutions looked at\nspirulina\u2019s potential to reduce high blood pressure. For this study, they used\nmice, which closely resemble humans in terms of many physical processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They started by recreating the effects of digestion on\nspirulina in order to isolate the peptides that would be absorbed by the human\nbody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next, the team looked at how the digested spirulina affected\nthe arteries and found that it caused the arteries to relax. This process is\nmediated by nitric oxide, which plays a role in maintaining blood pressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the researchers identified which peptide was\nresponsible for relaxing the arteries. They found that it was SP6, which\ninteracts with an important signaling pathway to release nitric oxide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To further test their findings, they administered SP6 to the\nmice and found that it dropped their blood pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study\u2019s lead author, Professor Carmine Vecchoine, says,\n\u201cSP6 could be a natural adjuvant to common pharmacological therapies in order\nto improve endothelial function and, consequently, combat hypertension.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that\nnearly one-third of adults in American are affected by high blood pressure,\nmaking it a priority to find a safe, cost-effective compound that could extend\nlives. A natural option like spirulina would be a welcome breakthrough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you’ve got high blood pressure, spirulina may be able to help. Find out what new research discovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[690],"tags":[876,785,786,942],"class_list":["post-13242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness","tag-blood-pressure","tag-high-blood-pressure","tag-hypertension","tag-spirulina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthymale.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}