Can L-arginine Cause Dizziness?

Dizziness is the way you felt when you overdid it on the playground merry-go-round or when you spun in circles until you could neither walk straight nor stand. Dizziness can also be a sign of a drug interaction or a serious medical condition that needs the attention of a physician. The dietary supplement L-arginine can cause dizziness as a consequence of the way in which your body uses it. Talk with a physician before taking any supplements containing L-arginine, especially if you are taking high blood pressure or heart medications.

Arginine Overview

L-arginine is one of the amino acids your body uses to construct proteins. Healthy adults can get all the arginine they need from their diet. Your body can also make arginine to meet its needs. You can get arginine from eating beef, pork, chicken, fish, dairy products or taking arginine dietary supplements. Watermelons are a rich source of the amino acid citrulline, which your body will use to restock its supply of arginine.

Dizziness Overview

Dizziness is a feeling of faintness, light-headedness, unsteadiness, whirling and disorientation. Dizziness can be caused by problems with the natural balancing system located in your inner ear. Heart disease, irregular heart beats or a sudden drop in blood pressure may cause a decrease the amount of blood that reaches your brain. This can leave you feeling dizzy and faint as well.

Arginine and Blood Pressure

In addition to making proteins, your body uses arginine to generate nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is a vasodilator: it relaxes muscles in blood vessel walls and allows the vessels to expand. As the blood vessel diameter increases, more blood is able to flow with less resistance. As the resistance goes down, so does the blood pressure. Because of this, dietary supplements containing arginine are sometimes used to treat mild high blood pressure. In a 2006 study published in the "Alternative Medicine Review," researchers gave an arginine supplement to 29 healthy subjects twice a day for one week. Sixty-two percent of the subjects experienced an average 3.9 point drop in diastolic blood pressure.

L-Arginine, Hypotension and Dizziness

Arginine may cause dizziness indirectly by producing nitric oxide, which then lowers your blood pressure and reduces the amount of blood reaching your brain. If your blood pressure is already low, taking an arginine supplement will drop it even more. If you are already taking medicines prescribed by a doctor for high blood pressure, taking an arginine supplement may cause an additional drop in your pressure sufficient to cause dizziness. Some heart medications work by causing dilation of the blood vessels supplying your heart. Taking arginine with these medications will cause additional vasodilation and increase the possibility you might experience dizziness.