High blood pressure? Try a glass of orange juice!
Good news for orange lovers: citrus fruit intake has been associated with reduced stroke risk.
The key may lie with a citrus phytonutrient called hesperidin, which appears to increase blood flow throughout the body, including the brain.
Using a machine known as a doppler fluximeter, scientists can measure blood flow through the skin using a laser beam.
If we hook people up to this machine and give them a solution containing the amount of hesperidin found in two cups of orange juice, blood pressure decreases and overall blood flow increases.
Good news for orange lovers: citrus fruit intake has been associated with reduced stroke risk.
When subjects drank straight orange juice instead of the hesperidin solution, their blood flow was even better. In other words, the stroke-reducing effects of oranges extend beyond just the hesperidin.
When it comes to food, the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts.
The positive effects of citrus fruits on blood flow don’t require a machine to measure them. In one study, scientists recruited women who suffered from sensitivity to cold weather due to poor blood flow — women with chronically cold hands, feet and toes — and placed them in a highly air-conditioned room.
The women in the experimental group drank a solution containing actual citrus phytonutrients, while another (control) group drank a placebo (an artificially flavoured orange drink).
The placebo drinkers got colder and colder. Because of decreased blood flow, the temperature of their fingertips dropped nearly 13c during the course of the study.
The fingertips of the women who drank real citrus, meanwhile, cooled less than half as fast, because their blood flow remained steadier.
The researchers also had both groups of women plunge their hands into icy water and saw the citrus drinkers recover about 50 per cent faster than the control group.
