Help for pre-eclampsia

Pre-eclampsia affects one in twenty pregnancies. A simple dietary supplement containing semi-amino acids and antioxidants may help prevent it especially in high risk women.

Pre-eclampsia is a condition where blood pressure increases and protein is found in the urine in increasing amounts after the 20th week of pregnancy. The face and hands will swell. It affects about 5% of the population and occurs most frequently in first time pregnancies. The disease runs in families and highly susceptible women will get it in every pregnancy. Women who have diabetes or are carrying twins run a higher risk.

Researchers from Mexico and the US suspected that low levels of L-arginine or antioxidant vitamins could play an important role in the development of eclampsia. They believe that supplements or a dietary change incorporating these compounds may lower the risk.

According to the findings, for women who ate supplement bars containing high levels of L-arginine and antioxidants, they experienced pre-eclampsia only 13% of the time. Compared to those women who took only antioxidants and developed pre-eclampsia 23% of the time. Those on placebo had it 30% of the time. The group that was studied was a group of pregnant women with a predisposition to eclampsia, either having experienced it before or being closely related to a woman who had.

The women who took both had full term pregnancies as well.

“We saw a very strong protective benefit for supplementation with L-arginine and antioxidant vitamins,” said study research Felipe Vanilla-Ortega of Mexico’s Universidad national. “Of course our findings need to be confirmed. But pre-eclampsia is a very dangerous condition and this appears t be a very inexpensive approach for lowering risk in high-risk women.”

Source: BMJ, MedicalNewsToday