The benefits of lowering blood pressure (BP) are well established for the prevention of
cardiovascular disease. While there are a number of
pharmaceuticals available for lowering BP, there is considerable interest in using
dietary modifications, lifestyle and behaviour changes as alternative strategies. Kukoamines,
caffeic acid derivatives of
polyamines present in solanaceous plants, have been reported to reduce BP. We investigated the effect of orally administered synthetic
kukoamine A on BP in the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR) laboratory animal model of
hypertension. Prior to the
hypertension study, we determined the safety of the synthetic
kukoamine A in a single oral dose (5 or 10 mg kg-1 bodyweight) 14-day observational study in mice. No negative effects of the
oral administration of
kukoamine A were observed. We subsequently investigated the effect of daily oral doses of
kukoamine A (0, 5, 10 mg kg-1 bodyweight) for 35 days using the SHR rat model of
hypertension. The normotensive control Wistar Kyoto (WKY) strain was used to provide a baseline for normal BP in rats. We observed no effect of orally administered synthetic
kukoamine A on arterial
hypertension in this laboratory animal model of
hypertension.