An Ayurvedic Arena for Hypertension Treatment

Hypertension (HTN) or high blood pressure, sometimes arterial hypertension, is a chronic medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is elevated. This requires the heart to work harder than normal to circulate blood through the blood vessels. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and diastolic, which depend on whether the heart muscle is contracting (systole) or relaxed between beats (diastole). A number of plants have been described in Ayurveda and other traditional system of medicine for the treatment of hypertension. Conventional antihypertensive drugs are usually associated with many side effects. Research has found a variety of alternative therapies to be successful in reducing high blood pressure including diet, exercise, stress, management, supplements and herbs. About 75 to 80% of the world population use herbal medicines, mainly in developing countries, for primary health care because of their better acceptability with human body and lesser side effects. However, Ayurvedic knowledge needs to be coupled with modern medicine and more scientific research needs to be done to verify the effectiveness, and elucidate the safety profile of such herbal remedies for their antihypertensive potential, now a day's herbal remedies are more in use due to fewer side effects. The present review article give idea about treatment of hypertension with the use of herbal plants.