Hormonal
Oral L-citrulline supplementation (3–10 g/day) effectively increases plasma L-arginine and nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability, leading to reduced resting blood pressure and arterial stiffness in pre-hypertensive and hypertensive populations, whereas it fails to improve endothelial function (FMD) in healthy young individuals.
If you have high blood pressure, taking 3-10 grams of L-citrulline daily (or eating equivalent amounts of watermelon) can help lower your blood pressure and improve artery stiffness. This works best if you are already pre-hypertensive or hypertensive. If you are young and healthy, you likely won't see changes in your blood vessel dilation, so don't expect performance benefits from this specific mechanism.
Alternatively, oral L-citrulline supplementation consistently increases plasma and tissue levels of L-arginine and NO bioavailability [10–12]. ... L-citrulline supplementation has shown promise as a blood pressure lowering intervention (both resting and stress-induced) in adults with pre-/hypertension ... improvement in endothelial function, as measured by brachial artery flow mediated dilation (FMD), have not been reported with acute or short-term (~7 days) administration of L-citrulline ... in healthy, young participants
Why this rating
The paper is a review citing multiple human clinical trials showing BP reduction, but notes conflicting/negative results for FMD in healthy subjects.
Source
l-Citrulline Supplementation: Impact on Cardiometabolic Health
Timothy D. Allerton et al. · Nutrients · 2018
DOI 10.3390/nu10070921
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