Hibiscus Tea, The Best Drink for High Blood Pressure

April 29, 2019

ReferencesJ HypertensionFitoterapia


Everything you do that helps high blood pressure adds to other actions. Losing weight, cutting salt, eating more vegetables, snarfing down ground flax seed, reducing alcohol all add up. In fact, they don't just add up, they are synergistic and are multiplicative. Now that you have done such a good job, time to reward yourself with a nice cuppa. Whoa, not black tea, hibiscus tea. This shouldn't have been last in the series, it should have been first. Why, well because it is so easy and has such a profound effect.

This is not just hype. This really works. And a lot! In fact, so much so that anyone with any sort of high blood pressure should consider this foundational to their care.

Here is the data. Combine 5 studies that used randomization and controls, with 390 participants, and you get today's results. The average lowering was in the range of 7.5 mm Hg. systolic and 3.5 mm diastolic. The higher your initial blood pressure, the greater the effect. Of course, with only 390 participants scattered over 5 studies, the authors note that "larger studies are needed". Can you imagine that? Not a chance that will ever happen as there isn't much of a market for expensive hibiscus pills. It's too cheap. Which means you must do it. You can afford it and it's ever so good for you. 


Why on earth does Hibiscus sabdariffa have such a powerful effect? The flower is particularly rich in organic acids, polyphenols, and anthocyanins that are salutary for the human vascular system. High blood pressure is essentially the lining of your blood vessel tree being fed up with all the assaults you place on it. HIbiscus's good stuff evidently calms all that firestorm down. Fat tissue is exuding inflammatory cytokines. The transfats, sugars, alcohol, and caffeine we slurp down are all setting off all our fire alarms that startle our vascular system into alarm mode.

It's no wonder we have high blood pressure. If you don't, living in America today, you are an outlier. By 70, 70% of us have it. And for this, we take a pill, or two or three. If you travel to parts of the world where folks naturally don't have all our American dietary insults, you find that people's blood pressure actually declines with advanced age. The two go hand in hand. 
So, if you want to live to be 100, you have to address your blood pressure. If it's already pretty good, great. Make it a little better. Reward yourself with a nice afternoon cuppa. Hibiscus. Not camellia sinensis (black tea).


WWW: What will work for me. I went on Amazon and bought myself a pound of hibiscus tea and two tea strainers. It's cheap. I don't want as much caffeine, particularly after lunch. So, the afternoon cuppa......hibiscus.


Pop Quiz

  1. Hibiscus tea will lower your blood pressure by how much? Answer: 7 mm Hg / 3 mm Hg.
  2. How does that compare to a pill? Answer: Equal to virtually every pharmaceutical. And not as fun
  3. As we age, our blood pressure naturally goes up? Answer. True, in America if you consider drinking alcohol, gorging on salt, getting overweight, shunning vegetables to be natural behavior. In parts of the world where those behaviors are less prevalent, blood pressure falls with age.
  4. What ingredient in Hibiscus does it? Answer. We don't know and likely won't' find out anytime soon. No big dollars to support something that is cheap.
  5. Can you name 5 strategies that help high blood pressure you are willing to add to your own lifestyle?                        Answer:     Your call?

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