ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Farrerol, a flavonoid considered to be the major bioactive component in a traditional Chinese herb, “Man-shan-hong”, which is the dried leaves of Rhododendron dauricum L. Our previous study found that farrerol possesses vasoactive eects. Therefore, we postulated that Farrerol may have potential antihypertensive activity. In this study, we examined this hypothesis by evaluating the eects of farrerol on the systolic blood pressure, heart rate and body weight in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats (SHR) and its normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY) control strain of 12 weeks of age for a duration of 20 weeks. Aortic media thickness were examined as they are the cardiovascular parameters that are directly associated with increased blood pressure. Plasma biochemical indices were also performed to assess whether these parameters were aected. These results showed that farrerol significantly improved blood pressure and plasma biochemical index and reduced aortic media thickness, which suggests that farrerol is a potential candidate drugs to prevent the development of hypertension.
