Amino acid linked to lower blood pressure: Study

BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhuanet)-- Amino acid in vegetable protein could lower blood pressure, says a new study.

The study that appears online July 6 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the journal Circulation, analyzed data from 4,680 middle-age people participating in an international population study on the effects of dietary nutrients on high blood pressure. Participants were from the U.S., U.K., China, and Japan.

It showed a nearly 5 percent higher intake of an amino acid called Glutamic, as a percent of total protein in the diet was linked to lower average blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure was lower by an average of 1.5 to 3.0 points and diastolic blood pressure was lower by 1.0 to 1.6 points.

"This average lower blood pressure seems small from an individual perspective. But, on a population scale, it represents a potentially important reduction," said Jeremiah Stamler, M.D., lead author of the study.

"It is estimated that reducing a population's average systolic blood pressure by 2 mm Hg could cut stroke death rates by 6 percent and reduce mortality from coronary heart disease by 4 percent," said Stamler, professor emeritus of the Department of Preventive Medicine in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill.

However, the worry is that people could take the finding as a reason to pop glutamic acid pills rather than making vegetables a larger part of their diet, Stamler said.

"We make a clear statement that there are no data on supplements of glutamic acid to tell us anything one way or another about their value," Stamler said.

Protein, animal and vegetable, consists of chains of amino acids. Glutamic acid is the most common of those amino acids, accounting for 23 percent of vegetable protein and 18 percent of meat protein.

(Agencies)