Research

Hormonal

Intra-arterial administration of unacylated ghrelin (200 µg/min) improves endothelium-dependent vasodilation in patients with metabolic syndrome by increasing nitric oxide bioavailability.

This study shows that ghrelin improves blood vessel function in people with metabolic syndrome by boosting nitric oxide. While the study used an invasive injection method, it suggests that maintaining healthy ghrelin levels through weight loss and exercise (which naturally raise ghrelin) may help protect your blood vessels. If you have metabolic syndrome, focusing on lifestyle changes that increase your body's natural ghrelin could support your cardiovascular health.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
In these patients, however, ghrelin resulted in a significant increase in the vasodilator response to acetylcholine compared with saline... This effect was likely related to enhanced nitric oxide bioavailability because... ghrelin had no effect on the vasodilator response to acetylcholine... after nitric oxide inhibition by NG-monomethyl-L-arginine.
Manfredi Tesauro et al. · Circulation · 2005

Why this rating

Small sample size (n=12 for primary outcome, n=6 for mechanism verification), single-center study, invasive intra-arterial administration limits generalizability.

Source

Ghrelin Improves Endothelial Function in Patients With Metabolic Syndrome

Manfredi Tesauro et al. · Circulation · 2005

DOI 10.1161/circulationaha.105.553883

crossover · n=36Cited 203×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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