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Quercetin Limitation

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To develop and understanding of quercetin I had read regular websites and news articles to obtain background information, and not focusing on whether it was peer-edited or credible. To obtain solid evidence I then search for peer-reviewed scientific journals that were either research or review articles. Using databases I was able to acquire these articles. Databases used were the University of Toronto Articles and Databases, Google Scholar and the School of Nutrition. Keywords searched: quercetin, blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, supplements, hypertensive, and flavonoid. Most of these keywords were used in combinations. From the evidence recovered it seems to show that the supplementation of quercetin is capable of decreasing blood …show more content…

Searching for peer-reviewed articles on quercetin and blood pressure only drew up six well carried out studies. This was a large limitation since the research is so limited, more tests and trials need to be conducted. Another limitation would be that there are many animal studies and not enough human studies. Larson et al. (2012) found quercetin reduced oxidative stress in rats, and that in human studies they could not make general assumptions due to the difference in quercetin plasma levels. The amount used in animal studies would require there to be a 10-30 fold increase in quercetin plasma in a human, which is possible to achieve from diet alone but the individual would have to be on a strict one. Now quercetin has been found to be generally safe, but at high levels, especially while on specific medications it can have an inhibitory effect which could result in kidney …show more content…

The sample sizes in the studies need to be increased in order to achieve statistical precision and reduce the standard errors (Askari et al. 2012, Edwards et al. 2007). Also, many of these studies are homogeneous, focusing on the middle-aged, Caucasians. This does not take into the consideration that the human genome varies between individuals, and selecting on a criterion of one ethnic does not give a good generalization. Besides the selection of the participants for the study, it also seems that in order for quercetin supplementation has blood pressure lowering effects of a certain range in an individual (Edwards et al. 2007). Another controversy is the relation between quercetin and endothelial function. Askari et al. (2012) found that there is no relationship while Egert et al. (2009) found that age impacted the association. The younger individuals had an improved endothelial function, possibly due to the mechanisms that occur in younger adults versus older adults. Another limitation is that these studies go no longer than 2 months, and 2 studies have confirmed that quercetin does not have any acute effects (Egert and Rimbach 2011, Edwards et al. 2007). Yet, due to a limited length of study the long-term impacts are unknown and if using quercetin for a long time period shows greater improvement. I propose that these limitations found do not

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