Effect Of Watermelon Supplementation On Blood Pressure In Chinese Adults With Prehypertension

Aim. Prehypertension have an increased incidence gradually all over the world.Fruits or their supplementations have been reported to improve individuals’ bloodpressures in Caucasians, but not for Chinese. The aim of research was to investigate theeffect and mechanism of watermelon supplementation (L-citrulline) in regulating bloodpressure among Chinese adults with prehypertension.Methods. This study was a randomized controlled and single-blind study. WeScreened40prehypertensive participants from369practicable individuals in physicalexamination. Health education materials were distributed to both groups and encourage ahealthy way of living habits. Based on that, a total of3g L-citrulline was given tointervention group while control group using equivalent placebo, twice a day. In next8weeks, we supervise and urge them to use it in right time and right dose and give themtargeted measures in insistent process. We evaluated their lifestyle, and the values of24-hour ambulatory blood pressure, diameters of brachial artery, and concentration of nitricoxide synthase were collected on basal and8weeks later.Results. Only two individuals fell off our study because of outbound tourism and datamissing respectively. Although their lifestyle including smoking, salt-intake, high-fat dietand physical activity was improved, two groups have no significant differences not onlybaseline but also8weeks later. L-citrulline reduced the maximum, minimum and24-average of systolic blood pressure, maximum of diastolic blood pressure (p<0.05),official systolic blood pressure and official mean arterial pressure while no significanteffect on the rest values of blood pressure, especially minimum of diastolic blood pressure.Diameters of brachial artery and content of nitric oxide synthase obviously improved after intervention (p<0.05).Conclusions. Our result showed that L-citrulline automatically regulated brachialblood pressure via improving endothelial function of Chinese adults with prehypertensionand provides an effective strategy for early interventions of PHT which may slow theprocess of PHT to hypertension.