Figure 1.

Systolic blood pressure (SBP) of spontaneously hypertensive rats. The animals drank different fluids from weaning until the 20th week of life (treatment period = T, indicated by a solid bar) and received therefore different daily treatments: tap water, 20 mg/kg/day Fraxinus excelsior L. seed extract (FESE), 40 mg/kg/day FESE, 60 mg/kg/day FESE, or 50 mg/kg/day captopril. All rats drank tap water from the 20th week of life until the 24th week of life (follow-up period = F, indicated by an open bar). Data are mean values ± SEM for 10 animals in T and for 5 animals in F. Similar letters represent no statistical differences (P > 0.05). P estimated by two-way ANOVA.