'Grandma's penicillin' also may help high blood pressure

Chicken soup, that popular home remedy for the common cold sometimes known as "Grandma's Penicillin," may have a new role alongside medication and other medical measures in fighting high blood pressure, scientists in Japan are reporting. Their research is scheduled for the October 22 issue of ACS' biweekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Ai Saiga and colleagues cite previous studies indicating that chicken breast contains collagen proteins with effects similar to ACE inhibitors, mainstay medications for treating high blood pressure. But chicken breast contains such small amounts of the proteins that it could not be used to develop food and medical products for high blood pressure. Chicken legs and feet, often discarded as waste products in the U.S. but key soup ingredients elsewhere, appear to be a better source.

In the new study, Saiga and colleagues extracted collagen from chicken legs and tested its ability to act as an ACE inhibitor in the laboratory studies. They identified four different proteins in the collagen mixture with high ACE-inhibitory activity. Given to rats used to model human high blood pressure, the proteins produced a significant and prolonged decrease in blood pressure, the researchers say.

Citation: "Angiotensin I-Converting Enzyme-Inhibitory Peptides obtained from Chicken Collagen Hydrolysate", dx.doi.org/10.1021/jf072669w

Source: American Chemical Society