Zaini Asmawi

The Antihypertensive Effect of Orthosiphon Stamineus Extracts: a Preliminary Study on Spontaneous Hypertensive Rats Zaini Asmawi

The prevalence of hypertension is estimated to have 4.8 million individuals in Malaysia. Expensive and associated with undesirable effects makes synthetic antihypertensive drugs are unfavorable to the local community. People nowadays are more interested in the usage of dietary herbs and medicinal plants as an alternative management. Orthosiphon stamineus (OS) is widely used in Southeast Asia as a traditional folk medicinal herb and claimed to treat high blood pressure. Unfortunately, no scientific evidence proves the local OS has antihypertensive effects. Therefore, we investigated the effect of oral OS on the blood pressure among spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR). We hypothesized that oral administration OS for 2 weeks at certain dosage has a significant mean reduction of blood pressure among SHR. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) was completed at Laboratory Animal Research Unit (LARU), Health Campus, Universiti Sains Malaysia Kubang Kerian Kelantan. The analysis should help professionals in Medical and Health Science fields or anyone else who may be considering utilizing OS for alternative treatment of hypertension disease.