Chicken soup with matzoh balls, a staple of the traditional Jewish dinner, may be good in reversing high blood pressure (BP) too, according to the latest findings.
Japanese scientist Ai Saiga and colleagues cited previous studies indicating that chicken breast contains collagen proteins with effects similar to ACE inhibitors, mainstay medications for treating high BP.
But chicken breast contains such small amounts of the proteins that it could not be used to develop food and medical products for the condition.
Chicken legs and feet, often discarded as waste products in the US but key soup ingredients elsewhere, appear to be a better source.
Saiga and colleagues extracted collagen from chicken legs and tested its ability to act as an ACE inhibitor in lab studies. They identified four different proteins in the collagen mixture with high ACE-inhibitory activity, said a release of the American Chemical Society.
Given to rats used to model human high BP, the proteins produced a significant and prolonged decrease in blood pressure, the researchers say.
These findings were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
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