6 Medicinal Properties Of Hibiscus By Dr. Diane Fulton for Natural Blaze
Hibiscus, in the form of a delicious tea and as an ancient medicinal therapy extracted from various parts of the plant, is a powerful booster for your health.
Healthy benefits of adding hibiscus to your medicinal and nutritional choices include balancing lipid profiles for both types of diabetes, reducing obesity and tummy fat, lowering blood pressure, attacking inflammation, decreasing oxidative stress and reversing metabolic syndrome. The forms of hibiscus range from tea and syrups to extracts and oils.
1. Helps Diabetes
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In a Type 1 diabetes-induced rat model, hibiscus extract of 1.75 grams per kilograms by weight was used as treatment — decreasing degeneration and necrotic changes found in pancreatic cells, showing the antidiabetic mechanism of hibiscus.[i]
Data from an alloxan-induced Type 1 diabetic rat study demonstrated that hibiscus extract possesses strong hypolipidemic as well as antioxidant properties and could prevent atherosclerosis and related cardiovascular pathologies associated with Type 1 diabetes.[ii]
In a trial of 60 Type 2 diabetes patients, participants consumed either hibiscus tea or black tea two times a day for one month. Those in the hibiscus tea group increased their high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and significantly decreased total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)cholesterol, triglycerides and apolipoprotein B (Apo-B100) deficiency (overall positive effects on their blood lipid profile) compared to the control group.[iii]
2. Reduces Obesity and Abdominal Fat
Subjects with a body mass index (BMI) of 27 or greater between the ages of 18 and 65 years were randomly divided into 17 control and 19 hibiscus extract treated groups for 12 weeks.
Consumption of the hibiscus extract reduced obesity, abdominal fat and serum free fatty acid, improved liver steatosis and could help to prevent obesity and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.[iv] Both hibiscus and lemon verbena extracts were used with 54 overweight subjects and effectively helped to manage their weight as measured by energy expenditure, appetite control and lipid profile.[v]
3. Lowers Blood Pressure
Five studies with 390 participants were meta-analyzed for effects of hibiscus supplements with significant results for lowering both systolic blood pressure (by an average of nearly eight millimeters of mercury (mmHg)) and diastolic blood pressure (by four mmHg).[vi]
