Hypertension is the fifth leading cause of morbidity according to the Department of Health’s statistics. Untreated hypertension may lead to stroke, blindness, heart attack, kidney and heart failure.1 However great the success in the therapy of hypertension has been gained today by recent drugs, the definite healing of patients has not yet been attained.2 Plants continue to be an excellent source of lead compounds. Previous efforts in our laboratory lead to the isolation of bioactive compounds. 3 Our results established the anti-hypertensive activity of M. oleifera using the angiotensin-converting enzyme or ACE inhibitory assay and revealed the concentration of the activity in the ethyl acetate portions. Two flavonoid glycosides were reported to have significant %inhibition, comparable with the positive control captopril. The results obtained in vivo indicated that mice treated with crude methanol and ethyl acetate extracts of M. oleifera significantly decrease the systolic blood pressure of Nω-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester or L-NAME induced-hypertensive mice. In either case, the effect was established after four weeks of treatment and there was no significant difference in BP values between high (0.3g/kg/day) and low (0.01g/kg/day) doses. The study shows that M. oleifera extracts are effective in the inhibiton of two major pathways in hypertension study which are correlated to ACE inhibition and to nitric oxide synthesis. The results of this study support that M. oleifera extracts can be developed as a potential anti-hypertensive health product.
References
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- Petkov, V. Am J Chin Med 1979; 7(3):197-236.
- Chichioco-Hernandez C, Villasenor I., Schroeder F, Paulus H, Clardy J. J Herbs Spices Med Plants 2016; 22: 94-102.