High blood pressure puts you at risk of heart disease and stroke. Your best bet for lowering high blood pressure, or hypertension, is to increase good habits, such as exercise and regular sleep, and decrease bad habits, such as eating salty food and drinking to excess. Specific foods or herbs may also fit into an overall health plan for maintaining healthy blood pressure. One proposed nutrient is the goji berry. Always ask your doctor about adding new foods, herbs or supplements to your diet.
About Goji Berries
Goji berries are the fruits of the Lycium barbarum plant, also known as the wolfberry. The shrub originated in Asia, but it can be grown elsewhere, including parts of the United States. Other than the edible berries, leaves are used in cooking and for medicinal teas, while the bark of its root system is also used externally and internally. Illnesses for which herbalists have employed the goji shrub include high blood pressure, coughs and fevers, skin rashes, eye problems, liver and kidney disease, high cholesterol and diabetes.
Traditional Hypertension Treatment
Goji berries have played a significant role in Asian medicine for thousands of years. While healers use various parts of the goji shrub to treat a range of illnesses, both the berries and the roots are used to lower blood pressure. In traditional Chinese medicine practices still used today, tea from the root bark addresses high blood pressure, while berries for hypertension treatment are turned into a sweet tonic.
Goji Berries and DASH
As antioxidant fruits, goji berries fit into recommendations for a diet that focuses on fighting hypertension. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, or DASH, meal plan emphasizes vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables, along with whole grains and low-fat dairy, with restrictions on saturated fat and sodium. B vitamins, antioxidant vitamins and antioxidant compounds are also important tools for lowering pressure, notes the University of Maryland Medical Center. According to the Huntington College of Health Sciences, goji berries are rich in the antioxidant compound zeaxanthin, as well as in flavonoids and polysaccharides. In addition, goji berries contribute vitamins A and C, the B vitamins riboflavin and thiamin, and the minerals calcium, iron, phosphorus and zinc.
Berries vs. Roots
While goji berries contain some of the nutrients considered important for people with high blood pressure, the roots make an even more direct contribution. Froedtert Hospital & Medical College of Wisconsin notes that preparations using goji roots encourage the expansion of artery walls, which lowers blood pressure by promoting blood flow. If you use goji berries for hypertension, the Huntington College of Health Sciences suggests either eating the whole berries fresh or dried, or selecting an extract that is standardized to contain 40 percent of the berry's polysaccarides, for maximum antioxidant protection.
References
- Columbia University Health Services; Go Ask Alice!: Goji Berries - Superfood, Scam, Safe?; December 2008
- University of Texas, El Paso; Herbal Safety: Goji; Armando Gonzalez Stuart, Ph.D.
- Froedtert Hospital & Medical College of Wisconsin; Goji Berry or Lycium; Dena McDowell, MS, RD
- Huntington College of Health Sciences; Goji and Noni - A Review of Two Traditional Medicinal Juices; Gene Bruno, MS, MHS; 2009
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Hypertension
