Friday, October 17, 2008

Chicken soup may lower blood pressure

Courtesy of USA Today

Chicken soup, which has been dubbed Grandma's penicillin for its purported cold-fighting abilities, may also help to lower high blood pressure.

Japanese researchers have found that collagen proteins found in chicken may actually lower blood pressure. These collagens appear to act like the blood pressure medications called ACE inhibitors.

One caveat, though: it's the chicken, not the rest of the stuff in the soup, that may be medicinal.

"As this study suggests, some collagen in chicken may lower blood pressure," said Dr. Byron Lee, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. "But be careful. The salt we put on our chicken and in our chicken soup may offset or even reverse this potential benefit."

The report will be published in the Oct. 22 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Bonnie - let's be crystal clear that these researchers are not referring to most commercial brands of chicken soup that contain a slew of sodium and chemicals. To take advantage of chicken soup, it needs to be either organic and low sodium if store-bought, or my first choice, homemade!

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