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Trans-Resveratrol: Its Potential to Maintain Healthy Blood Pressure

Resveratrol is a plant compound naturally found in the skins and seeds of grapes and berries, meaning it’s also found in red wine. Research has shown resveratrol has some promising health benefits, including protecting brain function and lowering cholesterol.

Some other potential trans-resveratrol benefits include increasing insulin sensitivity, easing joint pain, preventing and treating cancer and potentially lengthening lifespans.

This post will cover trans-resveratrol’s potential to maintain and lower blood pressure.

What is Blood Pressure?

Blood pressure is, essentially, the pressure or force that keeps blood moving through our arteries once it’s been pumped from our heart. General health check-ups can help us determine how hard our heart is working.

While each person’s ideal blood pressure goal is different due to their age, medical and family history and medications they’re taking, if heart readings show that their heart pressure is consistently above 140/90mmHg (millimetres of mercury), this is considered high.

Low blood pressure generally is only a problem if it causes you symptoms or negative effects like light-headedness, dizziness and fainting.

Definition: Hypotension is a drop in blood pressure and it’s when the blood circulating around the body is lower than normal or expected. You can tell if you have low blood pressure if you have blurred vision, dizziness, fatigue, fainting or nausea and causes range from dehydration to serious medical conditions. Think of the feeling you sometimes get when suddenly standing from a sitting position or after lying down, that’s hypotension.

Risk factors for high blood pressure include age, ethnic background and family medical history, but you can keep yourself healthy by drinking less alcohol, being active, eating a balanced diet and quitting smoking.

A high blood pressure can raise one’s risk of a heart attack, heart failure, stroke, kidney disease and other cardiovascular diseases.

The difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure readings

On your blood pressure reading, the top number is your systolic blood pressure. It gauges the pressure exerted by your heart's lower two chambers, the ventricles, when they contract and force blood out to the rest of your body.

The bottom reading is your diastolic blood pressure. It gauges how much pressure your blood exerts on the artery walls as your heart relaxes and the ventricles fill up with blood. Diastole, the time between heartbeats when your heart relaxes, is also when your coronary artery can deliver blood to your heart.

How Does Resveratrol Help Lower Blood Pressure?

Resveratrol acts like an antioxidant, and it’s because of this that it has the promise to lower blood pressure.

A 2015 review found that high doses of resveratrol may help reduce the pressure put on artery walls when the blood beats, called systolic blood pressure — this is the upper number in blood pressure readings.

As we age and as arteries stiffen, systolic blood pressure typically increases and becomes a risk factor for heart disease.

How does resveratrol help? Resveratrol may help the body produce more nitric oxide, which causes blood vessels to relax. This may cause vasodilation, which may lead to improved blood flow and lower blood pressure.

Definition: Vasodilation is the natural process where the arteries and large blood vessels widen and allow more blood to flow through, lowering blood pressure.

As mentioned, since resveratrol can help the body produce more nitric oxide, this also may increase the production of nitric oxide in endothelial cells, potentially enhancing endothelial function, promoting healthier blood vessel walls.

Resveratrol was also found to induce oxidative activation of PKG1α and lower blood pressure in hypertension wild-type mice, especially during times of oxidative stress.

Definition: Hypertension is abnormally high systolic and diastolic arterial pressure, which remains consistently high throughout the day, which can lead to health problems like coronary heart disease, stroke, nephropathy and other eye disease.

In terms of resveratrol and blood pressure medication, hypertension is normally treated using antihypertensive drugs to produce vasodilation, which is needed to lower blood pressure.

In this way, resveratrol is a potential candidate for standard antihypertensive therapy to sufficiently reduce blood pressure to normal levels, without the need for additional antihypertensive drugs.

Trans-Resveratrol vs Resveratrol

The human and animal studies conducted on the compound focused on supplements, as resveratrol supplements contain much higher concentrations than those you could get through food. This means that the benefits of resveratrol generally come from taking supplements.

What’s the difference between resveratrol and trans-resveratrol? Resveratrol is the general name used for supplements, with the active ingredient often being trans-resveratrol. Trans-resveratrol is the more bioavailable, or more absorbable version of resveratrol, they’re just different forms of the compound. Trans-resveratrol can be absorbed 30 times faster than resveratrol, hence why you generally see trans-resveratrol supplements.

While red grape skins are high in resveratrol, as mentioned above, Japanese knotweed has high levels of trans-resveratrol.

Trans-Resveratrol Supplements

There’s no universally recommended dosage of resveratrol. Clinical trials have found it’s safe to take up to 5g per day of resveratrol, but side effects like stomach cramps, flatulence and nausea are likely to occur with more than 2.5g per day.

As for resveratrol dosage for blood pressure, a 2015 review found that 150mg or more lowered systolic blood pressure but had no major effects on diastolic blood pressure.

The typical trans-resveratrol dosage per day you find in supplements is around 250–600mg.

Resveratrol has shown some exciting potential on our health, including its ability to maintain healthy blood pressure. Due to its anti-inflammatory properties, its ability to help the body produce more nitric oxide and promote healthy arteries and blood flow, resveratrol has some great potential, but further human clinical trials is needed, especially to determine the optimal dosage.

As always, it’s incredibly important to consult with your medical professional before taking any new supplement, especially if you’re using it to treat a medical condition.

To learn more about how trans-resveratrol can benefit your health, and not just on blood pressure, check out our compilation of trans-resveratrol scientific research.

Want to the best trans-resveratrol supplement to experience the potential of trans-resveratrol? Try out Xandro Lab’s Trans-Resveratrol 500mg today!