(San Francisco Chronicle) — Nearly a quarter of American adults are diagnosed with pre-hypertension, the blood pressure numbers that are higher than normal often leading to the silent condition of hypertension a major risk factor of heart disease, stroke and congestive heart failure and kidney disease.
Janzee Inc., a Chicago-based developer of natural consumer products, has developed a specially formulated dietary supplement, Rosellica, to help promote lower blood pressure when taken with a healthy diet and maintaining regular exercise.
Rosellica’s main ingredient is hibiscus sabdariffa, commonly called roselle or sorrel. The hibiscus plant native to regions of the Caribbean, Latin America and India, has long been used in to make tea which acts as a diuretic and can ease circulatory stress by lowering blood pressure.
People in these regions have made the infused tea by drying and boiling the calyces of the plant, then steeping the tea and sipping it throughout the day finding they were benefiting from the natural ingredients to help lower blood pressure.
“We wondered if there was a better way to reap the benefits of hibiscus than infusing the herbal tea”, says Michael Ruehle, president of Janzee Inc., maker of Rosellica.” We wanted to find a reliable convenient way to deliver the natural benefits of hibiscus tea and used the dried hibiscus calyces along with a proprietary blend and formulated it into an easy to swallow capsule,” he said.
Recent studies in the U.S. and U.K. including the Tufts University study “Effect of Hibiscus Sabdariffa L. Tisane Tea on Blood Pressure in Prehypertensive and Mildly Hypertensive Men and Women,” where nationally recognized nutrition scientist Diane McKay conducted a human clinical trial with 65 volunteers age 30-79 qualifying volunteers with systolic blood pressure was 120 to 159 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure was 95 mm Hg or less at the start of the study.
The findings of the study were shared at the 2008 American Heart Association meeting, showing those who drank three cups of hibiscus tea daily following their normal level of activity had a 7.2 percent drop in systolic blood pressure over the six week period. It further showed those with the highest systolic blood pressure readings saw a significant blood pressure reduction of up to 13.2 percent during the course of the study supporting the idea that drinking hibiscus tea may play a role in controlling blood pressure. A past president of the American Heart Association noted that the degree of blood pressure lowering associated with tea drinking was as much as would be expected with standard blood pressure medication.
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