Linda Cherry offers you healthy recipes, prayer, and additional health related information.
Something God has given us in nature has amazing effects on blood pressure.
High blood pressure is one of the most prevalent issues that physicians help their patients deal with today. It is a major health problem, contributing to heart disease, hardening of the arteries, kidney disease, and can affect multiple other organs.
That’s why a recent article in the Internal Medical Journal titled “Treatment of high blood pressure with hibiscus tea” really caught my eye. The article originated from the American Heart Association meeting, and the research was done at the prestigious Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University.
The incredible finding of this simple nutraceutical – a food that acts like a medicine - was that drinking 3 cups of hibiscus tea a day for 6 weeks had a significant effect on participants’ blood pressure. In fact, the higher the person’s blood pressure, the more it lowered it. In those with normal blood pressure it didn’t drop too low, but it appeared to keep it from getting higher.
Here are a few amazing statements from the article:
“Regularly incorporating hibiscus tea into their diet may help control blood pressure in people at risk of high blood pressure and those already diagnosed with high blood pressure.”
“The public health implications of a blood pressure reduction of this magnitude, if extended to a larger population, could be profound.”
And, from a president of the American Heart Association, “The blood pressure reduction seen with the tea is equal in size to the typical effect of a prescription anti-hypertensive medication.”
Isn’t it amazing that drinking tea made from something in God’s nature is equal to our most potent hypertensive medication? Wouldn’t you rather take something that God provided for us naturally, rather than a costly prescription medication that could have many side effects?
Why hibiscus tea? Apparently, researchers had observed in randomized trials with animals that it had anti-hypertensive and anti-artherosclerotic (hardening of the arteries) effects, and it was promising enough to continue into studies with humans. The compounds identified in the hibiscus tea were flavonoids and phenolic acids, which have potent antioxidant properties.
Medicine is catching up with the natural world that God created for us. I will continue to share information with you on how things from nature, like hibiscus tea, can help us on our Pathway to Healing.
You have a unique way that will bring about healing to your body - ordained and divinely appointed by God. And if you are already blessed with good health, there is a way to help you protect it. God knows exactly what you need as an individual. He will reveal it to you. He promises that.
My husband and I spend the winter in Mexico with our daughter and SIL (pastors). Hibiscus tea is very popular there - even sold in most eating establishments. The dried hibiscus flowers are sold in most grocery stores - bulk and packaged. I have found it takes SO much sweetening that I experimented around and found that using either white grape juice or apple juice for the sweetener that it works very well. Just open a bottle of room temperature juice, pour it in a large bowl, add a handful of dried hibiscus flowers and let it steep for a 2-3 hrs. It tastes very similar to cranberry juice - sugar free hibiscus tea. It is served as a cold beverage in Mexico.
Praise God
This is an amazing discovering. I was just telling Father that I no longer wanted to be on high blood pressure medication any longer. I will get on this right away and after the 6 wks go and show myself to the doctors...glory to God
Carolyn
I live in the Bahamas and there are many different types of Hibiscus. Can I use any of them to make tea? What about the green leaves. That is what I was boiling and drinking.
But in your comment you said the flowers.
Please send information of the discovery
Hibiscus sabdariffa was the type used in the study. The active components appear to be in the flower; a flower extract was used to standardize the amounts in the study, but boiling the whole flower is what is often recommended.
Here is the link to the article extract: http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0944711304000029
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