Eating broccoli, cabbage may help lower BP

Having broccoli and cabbage can help reduce blood pressure, according to a new study.

Broccoli and cabbage are particularly high in a chemical called glutamic acid.

Glutamic acid is the most common amino acid and accounts for almost a quarter of vegetable protein and nearly a fifth of animal protein.

Whole grain foods like rice, breads and cereals, soy products such as tofu and durum wheat, which is used to make pasta, are other common sources.

For the study, researchers analysed the amount of five amino acids - the building blocks of protein - in the diets of participants from the US, the UK, China and Japan.

The study of 4,680 people, aged 40 to 59, showed that on average that the more of the protein component they consumed the more their blood pressure fell.

"Glutamic acid may partly explain the link between vegetable protein and lower blood pressure," the Daily Express quoted study author Dr Ian Brown, an epidemiologist at Imperial College, London, as saying.

"However there is no 'magic bullet' for preventing high blood pressure, and vegetable protein and glutamic acid are individual elements of a broader healthy eating pattern," Brown added.

The study has been published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.