Key result
Psidium guajava bark lowers systolic BP by ~14% vs. ~9% with Terminalia arjuna.
Why the study?
Existing Ayurvedic herbal antihypertensive drugs are limited to mild-to-moderate cases, motivating a search for new plant-based therapies and a clinical comparison of Psidium guajava stem bark against Terminalia arjuna stem bark in HTN management.
Does Psidium guajava stem bark powder reduce blood pressure and hypertension-related symptoms compared to Terminalia arjuna stem bark powder in patients with uncomplicated primary hypertension?
RCT (n=40)
Single-blind
Randomized
No
Does Psidium guajava stem bark powder reduce blood pressure and hypertension-related symptoms compared to Terminalia arjuna stem bark powder in patients with uncomplicated primary hypertension?
In this small comparative Ayurvedic trial, Psidium guajava stem bark demonstrated comparable short-term blood pressure and symptom reduction to Terminalia arjuna stem bark in patients with uncomplicated primary hypertension.
Both barks safely lowered BP in small cohort; leaves open relative efficacy pending larger randomized trials.
Hypertension (HTN) is one of the disease of global concern in the present day. It is one of the leading causes of Heart diseases and strokes. Hence it is important to maintain the normal blood pressure of around 120/80 mm of Hg. Many medicines have been included in the group of anti-hypertensive drugs like calcium channel blocker, beta blockers etc which are effective in the management of hypertension. Many herbal drugs are also being used for the management of Hypertension like Sarpagandha, Asvagandha, Arjuna etc in Ayurvedic medicine since a long time. Inspite of their use, the use is limited to mild to moderate cases of Hypertension. Hence a quest for a new plant based drug, having anti-hypertensive properties is searched. Psidium guajava, which is used for its fruits is found to have similar properties to drugs like Arjuna is selected for the study, for comparing clinically the efficacy of the stem bark of both the plant in the management of HTN. 40 uncomplicated HTN patients were selected for the study based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were administered with the stem bark of PG for group A and stem bark of TA for group B. Observations and results have shown that both the drugs are equally effective in reducing the parameters of the study like headache, palpitations, insomnia, systolic HTN, Diastolic HTN and Anxiety. From the overall effect of the study, it has been observed that PG have shown a slight better overall improvement in the maintenance of the HTN than Arjuna. Even though the efficacy is not significantly different for both the groups. Thus from the study it can be concluded that as both the medicines have shown equal efficacy in reducing HTN, they can be used as substitute drugs to each other in the management of HTN. No adverse events were noted during the study in both the groups, indicating that the drugs are safe to use and do not cause any harmful effects.
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Posa et al. (2026) conducted an RCT in Uncomplicated Primary Hypertension (n=40). Psidium guajava stem bark powder capsule vs. Terminalia arjuna stem bark powder capsule (2 capsules of 500 mg each TID after food, 3 g/day) was evaluated on Systolic Blood Pressure reduction (% relief from baseline to after treatment) (p=<0.0001). Psidium guajava bark reduced mean systolic blood pressure by 13.84% (159.0 to 137.0 mmHg, p<0.0001) compared to 9.15% (153.0 to 139.0 mmHg, p<0.0001) with Terminalia arjuna bark.
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