Could zinc help control blood pressure?

However, these scientists unexpectedly found that a metal, zinc, may also play a role in maintaining vascular tone.Senior study author Dr. Scott Ayton, Ph.D., says:“Zinc is an important metal ion in biology and, given that calcium and potassium are famous for controlling blood flow and pressure, it’s surprising that the role of zinc hasn’t previously been appreciated.”Dr. Ayton adds, “Essentially, zinc has the opposite effect to calcium on blood flow and pressure.”The study’s lead author is Dr. Ashenafi Betrie, Ph.D., and the co-senior author is Dr. Christine Wright, Ph.D. They and Dr. Ayton are all affiliated with the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Parkville, Australia, and the University of Melbourne, also in Australia.The study appears in the journal Nature Communications.“Our discovery that zinc is also important was serendipitous because we’d been researching the brain, not blood pressure,” says Dr. Betrie.As Dr. Betrie recalls, “We were investigating the impact of zinc-based drugs on brain function in Alzheimer’s disease when we noticed a pronounced and unexpected decrease in blood pressure in rat models treated with the drugs.”The researchers’ discovery may explain a couple of things that experts already know about zinc. This, in turn, results in increased blood flow and lower blood pressure.Dr. Winston Morgan, from the University of East London in the United Kingdom, told Medical News Today that although other studies have suggested a possible role for zinc in hypertension, this one specifically “explores what happens when intracellular zinc is regulated upward or downward using ionophores and chelators.” Ionophores are chemical vehicles that transport ions, such as zinc, across a cell membrane, while chelators bind them.