Does Asparagus Lower Blood Pressure?

Japanese researchers at Kagawa Nutrition University in Japan wanted to know if asparagus could lower blood pressure. So they conducted a 10-week study on rats with high-blood pressure and found that, yes, asparagus does lower blood pressure in rats, says NPR.

Some rats were fed a diet made up of 5 percent asparagus while the rest were fed a standard rat diet, without asparagus. After the 10 weeks, the rats that ate asparagus had lower blood pressure than the rats that did not. The asparagus diet also generated less protein in the rats' urine, a sign of a healthier kidney, and less activity of ACE, or angiotensin-converting enzyme, which increases blood pressure. The researchers believe that a compound in asparagus called 2"-hydroxynicotianamine caused decreased ACE activity in the rats.

There is no research yet that proves that asparagus has the same effect on us. But rats are more like us than you think, so maybe it does. Stay tuned.