Blood Flow
Research analysis led by Kamal Patel.
All content reviewed by the Examine.com Team. Published: Dec 12, 2012
Last Updated:
All content reviewed by the Examine.com Team. Published: Dec 12, 2012
Last Updated:
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Human Effect Matrix
The Human Effect Matrix looks at human studies (it excludes animal and in vitro studies) to tell you what supplements affect blood flow
| Grade | Level of Evidence [show legend] |
|---|---|
|
Robust research conducted with repeated double-blind clinical trials |
|
Multiple studies where at least two are double-blind and placebo controlled |
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Single double-blind study or multiple cohort studies |
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Uncontrolled or observational studies only |
|
Level of Evidence
?
The amount of high quality evidence. The more
evidence, the more we can trust the results.
|
Outcome |
Magnitude of effect
?
The direction and size of the supplement's impact on
each outcome. Some supplements can have an increasing effect, others have a decreasing effect, and others have no effect.
|
Consistency of research results
?
Scientific research does not always agree. HIGH or
VERY HIGH means that most of the scientific research agrees.
|
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Notable
|
Very High See all 20 studies |
Blood flow appears to be increased in the body very reliably as assessed by flow-mediated vasodilation (FMD) by around 2%, affecting both healthy and unhealthy people. There may also be an increase in arterial blood flow which is less reliable.
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|
|
Notable
|
Very High See all 3 studies |
An improvement in nitric oxide dependent blood flow appears to occur following procyanidin supplementation which has been noted in both unhealthy persons as well as healthy controls; there does not appear to be a per se hypotensive effect either.
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|
|
|
Minor
|
Low See all 6 studies |
May increase blood flow secondary to activating nitric oxide, but due to the unreliability of increasing nitric oxide there is also unreliability in how arginine increases blood flow
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