Asthma sufferers can cut down on symptoms of wheezing and coughing with passionfruit extract, a new study has found.
The research, published in the journal Nutrition Research, found that in a placebo-controlled, double-blind trial, only a fifth of the asthma patients receiving purple passionfruit skin extracts had symptoms of wheeze - in comparison with nearly 80 per cent of the placebo group.
Passionfruit treatment also showed signs of significantly decreasing blood pressure in another trial.
Ronald Watson, who led the study, said: “There are a lot of dietary supplements and natural products that are sold without much, or any, evidence of efficacy.
“We now have two scientific publications indicating passionfruit has a beneficial effect on two very common but very different human diseases - hypertension and asthma - and that's very exciting.”
