Background: Hypertension is one of the most prominent risk factor causing cardiovascular problems and death. There are a lot of factors triggering the increase in the blood pressure. Some of the factors are daily habit and lifestyle. Modification in the lifestyle, including consumption of foods which are believed to prevent and
medicate prehypertension/hypertension, one of which is the honey. Honey is a complex form of sugar whose prevalent use has been noted since the past time. Some
examples on the use of honey are to speed up the healing of wound, to act as antibacterial agent, to become anti-oxide and also been reported as having cardio protective function.
Methods: This research is an experimental one with cross-over design. Sample are taken using the consecutive sampling technique. The subjects of this research are 16 employees aged 26-65 years with pre-hypertension (120/80-139/89 mmHg) from the medicine faculty in Atma Jaya Catholic University. Controlled variables are those who consume placebo, whereas the therapy group consumes honey. The difference in the blood pressure before and after the consumption between the control group and therapy group is measured with paired sample t-test.
Results: The result from the paired sample t-test shows a significant decrease in the systolic blood pressure for the therapy group (p=0,012). However, there is no dramatic decrease in the diastolic blood pressure for the therapy group (p = 0,155).
Conclusion: There is statistically significant reduction in the systolic blood pressure on productive aged with pre-hypertension who consumed 20 ml honey/day for 14
consecutive days. |